World championship match will be short, rich

Position No. 6024: White to play and win. From the game Atila Figura-Roeland Pruijssers, Germany 2008.

Solution to Position No. 6023: White wins with 1 g5! Qf7 2 Nc6+! Kd6 (else 3 Bc5 mate) 3 Nxb8 Qc7 4 Bc5+! Kxc5 (or 4 . . . Qxc5 5 Qd7 mate) 5 Qxc7+.

The world championship match between champion Viswanathan Anand of India and former champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia begins Tuesday in Bonn, Germany. They will contest 12 games, one of the shortest championships ever, for a purse of 1.5 million Euros (about $2.1 million).

A short match increases the value of one lucky win. The match is a tossup for other reasons too. Both players have superb skills; Anand calculates more quickly but Kramnik's judgment appears slightly better. Both have extensive experience in matches, including failures in their younger days. Anand, 38, has shown no signs of declining powers. Kramnik, 33, seems fit after a 2005 bout with rheumatoid arthritis that kept him from competing for several months. The most serious charge against each is that he does not always put forth maximum effort to win a game. That failing matters more in tournaments than in matches.

Neither player performed well in his final warmup before the match. The World Chess Federation's October rating list ranks Anand fifth (falling from first place) at 2783 and Kramnik sixth at 2772. Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, whom Kramnik defeated in the 2006 world championship, has regained first place at 2791. Next are Alexander Morozevich of Russia, 2787, and Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Magnus Carlsen of Norway, each 2786. The top players have never been so closely bunched.

Local news

Uldarico Celestial, Vartan Ghazarian, Luis Moreno, Jose Quiroz and Miguel Martinez led their sections at the Exposition Park Chess Club's tournament last Sunday. The club meets every at 1 p.m. Sundays in the public library, 3900 S. Western Ave. in Los Angeles. Visit chess.expoparkla.com for much more about the club.

Predict the winner

We will offer a small prize to the reader who predicts the result of the match most accurately. Include the number of wins by each player and the outcome of tiebreakers if the score reaches 6-6. Send your guess before 6 a.m. Tuesday to jack.peters@latimes.com.

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