Anytime a chess tournament involves the World Chess Champion and the world's #1-ranked player, you know you have something worth watching. Sure, the Arctic Securities Chess Stars tournament is just a rapid event, but with Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen involved, the results are bound to generate a little more interest than normal. The tournament, taking place in Kristiansund, Norway, also includes Judit Polgar and local talent Jon Ludvig Hammer, making it a nice little double round-robin tournament.
Now, Hammer and (especially) Polgar are hardly pushovers, but there's no doubt as to who the favorites are here. Anand and Carlsen won each of their games today against Polgar and Hammer, while drawing each other, sending both of them out to an impressive 2.5/3 start. Meanwhile, the other half of the field is already more or less out of contention, as both Polgar and Hammer stand at 0.5/3, having only scored a draw against each other.
The second day of the round-robin portion of the event will be played tomorrow. After that segment is concluded, the top two players (at this point, very likely to be Anand and Carlsen, of course) will play a two game mini-match for the title on Monday, while the 3rd and 4th place players will also take part in a consolation match.
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