Three World champions to play at M-Tel Masters 2006
By Vijay Kumar

Sofia,7th March 2006. Three world champions including India’s Viswanathan Anand have confirmed their participation in the world’s Strongest M-Tel Masters Super Chess Championship to be held in Sofia in May. The Chess Lovers of the ancient game will be able to see the present World Champion Veselin Topalov and the two former champions of the planet Viswanathan Anand and Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in action at one place. The other three participants will be Gata Kamsky (USA), Etienne Bacrot (FRA) and Peter Svidler (RUS).

“For the second consecutive year M-Tel Masters will be the strongest in the world and the average ELO of the participants is 2747 and the competition is category of 20 as per FIDE regulations ” Silvio Danailov, Director of the tournament told UNI.

The tournament will be held from May 10 to May 21, 2006, and the President of the Republic of Bulgaria H.E . Georgi Parvanov is the Patron of the Championship. The six grand masters will play in Sofia Hall of the luxury five-star Grand Hotel Sofia

The rules of the tournament are for two rounds with 7-hour control. Each participant will play two games against the rest in exchanged colors. In case of a draw at the top a tie-break will be played to decide the winner. Like last year the new rule about the draws that was introduced in Sofia will be valid. According to it the players cannot agree for a draw. This can be decided only by the chief referee of the tournament.
In the rest day of the competition the World Champion Veselin Topalov will give a simul in the National Theatre park, where M-Tel has donated 10 chess tables for the fans of the ancient game.