Kasimdzhanov to assist Anand

Viswanathan Anand named former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov as one of his seconds for the high-profile World Championship match against Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik which gets underway here on Tuesday.

Apart from Kasimdzhanov, Anand will also take the services of his trusted partner Peter Heine Nielsen of Denmark, Radoslav Wojtaszek of Poland and Indian national champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly. The championship, to be played over 12 classical games and then — in the event of a tied result — over games of shorter duration, carries a total prize pool of euro 1.5 million which will be equally split between the players. After Kramnik’s announcement of having Hungarian Peter Leko in his camp, there was much speculation on Anand’s team composition for the historical match. The Indian showed he indeed had an ace up his sleeves in the form of Kasimdzhanov, a former world champion in the knockout format. Apart from Leko, Kramnik’s two other seconds are Sergey Rublevskyi (Russia) and Laurent Fressinet (France).

Meanwhile, Kasimdzhanov’s appointment also ended speculation over Magnus Carlsen’s possible presence in Anand’s team. The Norwegian wonder-kid will be playing the European Club Cup in Greece during the World Championship.