2008 World Championship Match announced

Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik for the title

After the lengthy negotiation, World Chess Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik has been officially announced. There are no draw odds and tiebreak will be played in case of a tie after 12 regular games. It is also decided that Germany is neutral country. The match will take place on 12-30 October, which is later than FIDE planned, but Anand already had contract for the Grand Slam final tournament in September.

Before Corus 2008 Kramnik and Anand have played over 125 games. The stats very well reflect the similarity of ELO of the two players. Anand has won 19 times, Kramnik has won 15 times, and draw has been agreed in more than 90 games.

Press Release

World Chess Championship to be held in Germany: Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik battle for the highest chess title in October 2008

· When: From October 11 - 30, 2008
· Where: Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn
· Overall Prize fund: 1,5 Million Euro
· Patron: German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück
· Main sponsor: Evonik Industries AG

Dortmund. The World Chess Championship will be held from October 11 to 30, 2008 in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, between Viswanathan Anand (India) and Vladimir Kramnik (Russia).

The match will consist of twelve games, played under classical time controls, in the period from October 11 to October 28, 2008. If there is a tie at the end of these games a tiebreak will be played on October 30, 2008. The prize fund, which will be split equally between the players, is 1,5 million Euro (approximately 2,1 million US Dollars) including taxes and FIDE licensee fees.

Viswanathan Anand (37) and Vladimir Kramnik (32) are the two outstanding personalities in chess today. The world championship match between them is keenly anticipated by chess fans all over the world. It is part of a 120-year tradition of chess history, which includes matches like Capablanca-Alekhine, Fischer-Spassky, Kasparov-Karpov and Kramnik- Topalov.

The reigning and undisputed World Champion Anand won his title in September 2007 at the World Championship tournament in Mexico City. Kramnik, who was undefeated in his three world championship matches, became second in this double round robin event.

The World Chess Championship 2008 takes place under the patronage of the German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, who is himself an enthusiastic and ambitious chess player.

The main sponsor of the World Championship is Evonik Industries. This industrial enterprise is located in Essen, Germany. The organizer of the World Championship 2008 is Universal Event Promotion (UEP), which is located in Dortmund (Germany) and has received all rights for the event from FIDE.

The World Chess Championship 2008 in Bonn will be organized with the full cooperation of the World Chess Federation FIDE and it’s President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. FIDE has its main office in Athens, Greece, and is the head of 161 national chess federations with 40 million active chess players, making it one of the world’s largest sporting organizations.

Evonik Industries

Evonik Industries is the creative industrial group which operates in three highly profitable, promising business areas: Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. Evonik is a global leader in specialty chemicals, an expert in power generation from hard coal and renewable energies, and one of the largest private residential real estate companies in Germany. The strengths of Evonik are creativity, specialization, continuous self-renewal, and reliability.

Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world. In fiscal 2006 around 43,000 employees generated sales of €14.8 billion and an operating profit (EBIT) of over €1.2 billion. Evonik plans to enter the capital markets in the first half of 2008.