Former world chess champion Bobby Fisher died on 17th January in Iceland at the age of 64. The United States’ first and only world champion, he is still regarded as the greatest natural chess player the world has ever witnessed.

At 14, he became the youngest ever U.S. open champion. He became the youngest international grandmaster at the age of 15. In 1972, he became the world chess champion after beating Russian Boris Spassky in a classic cold war showdown. An eccentric person, he refused to defend his title in 1975, when FIDE, the international chess federation did not accept his numerous conditions (64, supposedly) for the match, resulting in FIDE awarding the title to his challenger Anatoly Karpov.

In 1992, he competed against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia despite the United Nations sanctions on that country, thus alienating the United States authorities who issued an arrest warrant for him. He never returned to the United States.

Fisher always insisted that he was still a world champion because he had lost a title match. He also charged that all matches sanctioned by FIDE involving Karpov and Kasparov were fixed. In the latter stages of his life, he became well-known for his anti-American and anti-semitic outbursts and after the September 11 attacks, in a live radio interview with a radio station in Philippines, he praised the strikes.

He was detained in Japan for a few months in 2005 for allegedly using a revoked U.S. passport but managed to gain Icelandic citizenship and remained in Iceland until his death. A moody and flaky genius, Bobby Fisher will forever be remembered as one of the greatest chess players ever to have played the game.

He has just drawn his game with Peter Leko which means he is now crowned world champion.

It was a quick game where Leko played the Marshall attack and Anand, as usual, responded with a non-standard variation, thus creating a sharp and complicated situation with chances for either side. A few clever moves (from both sides) later, anand exchanged off a couple of pieces which suddenly turned the game into a dead draw, and a draw was agreed to without much ado.

In other ongoing games, svidler-grischuk is at an extremely interesting position with grischuk looking aggressive. However, he seems to have gone to sleep and has taken over half an hour for his last move (he is yet to move as I write this). If Grischuk can take care of his time troubles, he stands a good chance of winning this one. However, the position is still sharp and the game can go any way.

Gelfand, once again playing the Petroff with black, quickly won a pawn, thus creating a small flutter among the set of Anand fans (at that point of time, Anand’s game was on a knife’s edge). However, Morozevich quickly won back the pawn and the two are now engaged in a good sharp battle. I’m feeling extremely sleepy now, else I’d've stayed up to see this one.

The Kramnik-Aronian game has been boring so far, in fact the only boring game of this round with them locked in a positional battle. I was definitely not going to stay up for that one!

Anyways, Anand’s quick draw means that I can sleep now, and in peace. And yeah, just to remind you, he is the world champion.

A few hours after India had beaten Pakistan in a thriller to win the ICC World Twenty20, another thriller happened at the Sheraton Centro Histórico Hotel in Mexico City. It was again played out in a little more than two hours, though at a much more relaxed pace (from the spectator’s point of view). There was no live telecast, though there were several webcasts. It started late by Indian time (0030 hrs) so I don’t know how many would’ve actually watched the webcast.

Anand-Kramnik last week had proved to be an unmitigated thriller, with the former managing to hold on in a tough rook ending in order to draw the game. Yesterday was the return game, and though it barely reached the endgame, it was no less a thriller. Anand managed to transform the normally sedate semi-Slav opening with a few aggressive moves and Kramnik got back at him with equal measure. Anand was forced to castle to an unprotected queen side and soon embarked on a pawn-eating spree.

Kramnik responded to that with fierce attack and soon had a Steinitz knight in place (it’s a knight placed on d6 or e6 (if you are playing white). the first world champion Steinitz had remarked that if you can establish a knight on that position you can go off to sleep and let the game win by itself!), though it was quickly got rid of by Anand by way of an exchange sacrifice (rook for minor piece). He got two pawns and excellent counterplay for the sacrifice and was threatening to roll his passed pawns on the queen side when Kramnik managed to infiltrate Anand’s last rank and soon a draw was agreed.

Anand continues to lead by a point, with 6.5 after 10 rounds. His nearest rival is the Israeli veteran Gelfand at 5.5. With four rounds to go, Anand should be firm favorite to win the tournament from here.

You can see all the games so far at the official website www.chessmexico.com . The games are also webcast live here. The next four rounds will be played today, 27th, 28th and 29th, with 26th being a rest day. Games begin at 1400 local time which translates to 0030 hours on the next day in India.

Skimpy also blogs at Pertinent Observations

Devangshu Dutta writes in the supplement of the Business Standard that this year’s Mainz Classic will feature an altogether new format - the C960, better known as Fischer Chess. In this format, the starting positions are randomized, thus killing off whatever advantage players try to gain from the openings.

It is reported that this tournament will be held alongside the normal Rapid tournament, and woud feature four players - Anand, Aronian, Kasimdzhanov and Bacrot. Should be really interesting to see how the champs cope up with the new format.

While on one hand it is exciting to know that the new format is being tried out, it also raises a few questions. Does this mean that classical chess is dying? Is the new format being introduced because classical chess doesn’t draw as much interest as it used to? Has the fight regarding the two ruling bodies (FIDE and Kasparov’s PCA) had such a negative impact on the sport?

There are also questions from the other side, viz. will the new format catch on? Will the new format be able to coexist with classical chess? How good will the classical champions be at this format?

We need to wait for a while before these questions get answered. In the meantime, we can look forward to the Mainz Classic and see how the new game pans out. And hopefully, it should get enough coverage from the mainstream media.