Dortmund (Germany), July 31: Former world champion Viswanathan Anand will start his campaign with white pieces against GM Peter Leko of Hungary in the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Championship which starts here later today. Anand will have to prove more than a few things in this Dortmund meeting as his performance here in the 2001 edition was a forgettable last place finish in a field of six.
Anand skipped the last year's edition as it was a qualification tournament for playing GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia as part of the Reunification Treaty of the Chess World signed during the Eurotel Trophy at Prague, Czech Republic, last May.
A winner of this event in 1996 and 2000, Anand is expected to give his best shot this time around especially against Leko as the latter beat him in their last classical encounter at the Linares tournament earlier this year. Barring that loss that resulted in a joint third place for the Indian, Anand has nearly ruled this year with a winning performance in Corus tournament at Wijk Ann Zee in Netherlands and sterling show at the amber blindfold and rapid chess in Monte Carlo.
The Indian wizard also won the Sis Masters Tournament in Denmark with an enviable score of 5.5 points out of a possible 6.
Dortmund would be another ball game as it will be played under classical time control. This will be Anand's third event this year in this format after Corus and Linares and the pressure will be on him to emerge triumphant in a field of six. Bureau Report