Michael Tal became Soviet Champion at the age of 18 and the youngest World Champion (at the time) of 23.
He was particularly renowned for his inspirational attacks and combinations.
The venue (see picture) is one of the best renovated buildings of the classical era in the Russian capital.
The time control gives the players plenty of time for reflection by today's standards:
100'/40, then 50'/20, then 15 minutes KO, all with an increment of 30" per move.
Here are some statistics on the participants:
Seed | Name | Country | Rating | Age | World Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Magnus Carlsen | NOR | 2826 | 20 | 1 |
2 | Viswanathan Anand | IND | 2811 | 41 | 2 |
3 | Levon Aronian | ARM | 2802 | 29 | 3 |
4 | Vladimir Kramnik | RUS | 2800 | 36 | 4 |
5 | Vassily Ivanchuk | UKR | 2775 | 42 | 6 |
6 | Sergey Karjakin | RUS | 2763 | 21 | 8 |
7 | Hikaru Nakamura | USA | 2758 | 23 | 10 |
8 | Peter Svidler | RUS | 2755 | 35 | 12 |
9 | Boris Gelfand | ISR | 2744 | 43 | 14 |
10 | Ian Nepomniachtchi | RUS | 2730 | 21 | 20 |
More information from the official site:
Live games from 2pm local time
12 noon Paris, Madrid
11 am London
6am New York
3am Los Angeles
10pm Sydney