Norway Chess 2013 Super-Tournament
The hotly-anticipated new super-tournament Norway Chess 2013 runs from 7th -18th May in Stavanger.
When the original line-up was announced it included the top 8 players in the world at that time, but the withdrawal of Vladimir Kramnik and the vagaries of monthly rating lists mean that this is no longer the case.
Despite this, it's still a fantastic line-up with Peter Svidler as an excellent substitute for Kramnik. Only Kramnik, Grischuk and Caruana from the current top 10 players are absent. It will be particularly interesting to see whether Veselin Topalov can maintain his excellent recent form.
.
Norway Chess 2013 Start List
| # | Name | Fed | Elo | Rank |
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2868 | 1 |
| 2 | Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2813 | 2 |
| 3 | Topalov, Veselin | BUL | 2793 | 4 |
| 4 | Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2783 | 5 |
| 5 | Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2775 | 7 |
| 6 | Svidler, Peter | RUS | 2769 | 9 |
| 7 | Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2767 | 10 |
| 8 | Radjabov, Teimour | AZE | 2745 | 14 |
| 9 | Wang, Hao | CHN | 2743 | 16 |
| 10 | Hammer, Jon Ludvig | NOR | 2608 | 197 |
.
The format is a single-round-robin and the official website promises live commentary from Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam and Simen Agdestein, as well as live game broadcasts and live video.
The time control is 100 mins for 40 moves, then 50 mins for 20 moves, and then 15 mins to a finish with a 30 second increment from the start. The "Sofia" anti-draw rules will apply.
The drawing of lots will be settled by a blitz tournament on the 7th of May at a time control of 4 min + 2 sec increment.
.
Tournament Schedule (Times = UTC + 2)
.
The main sponsors are the Norwegian companies HTH and Jadarhus, and it's hoped that the tournament will become a regular fixture in the calendar.
The event will also include a school tournament with hundreds of children, and a celebrity tournament with a range of celebrities showing off their chess skills!
.
