By V. Krishnaswamy, IANS
Bangalore : After long-drawn out discussions over the past two months, the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik of Russia has been scheduled for Oct 11-28 next year in Bonn, Germany.
Ever since Anand won the title in Mexico City in one of the strongest fields ever assembled in a tournament, there has been talk about a match against Kramnik. The terms and conditions as also the prize fund have finally been decided.
The 12-game clash, which has been a topic of much speculation and discussion, will have a prize fund of 1.5 million euros (about $2.1 million) and it will be split equally between the two players.
The match will consist of 12 games, played under classical time controls. If there is a tie at the end of these games a tiebreak will be played on Oct 30. The prize fund of 1.5 million euros (about $2.1 million) includes taxes and FIDE (World Chess Foundation) licensee fees.
Anand, 37, is the reigning and undisputed World Champion. He won the title in September 2007 at the World Championship tournament in Mexico City. Kramnik, 32, was second in this double round robin event.
In the meantime, Veselin Topalov who had beaten Kramnik in a title-match will clash with Gata Kamsky, recent winner of the chess World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.
The winners of the Anand-Kramnik and Topalov-Kamsky games are expected to clash in 2009.
The Anand-Kramnik match is part of a 120-year tradition of chess history, which includes matches like Capablanca-Alekhine, Fischer-Spassky, Kasparov-Karpov and Kramnik-Topalov.
The World Chess Championship 2008 takes place under the patronage of the German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück who is an enthusiastic and ambitious chess player.
The main sponsor of the World Championship is Evonik Industries, an industrial enterprise located in Essen, Germany, who also sponsored the 2006 World Chess Challenge between Kramnik and the chess programme Deep Fritz.