León 2007 with four world champions

XX Magistral Ciudad de León

The 20th Ciudad de León chess tournament will be held from 4th to 9th July 2007, with four World Champions taking part: Viswanathan Anand, current number 1 in the FIDE ratings, Veselin Topalov, second in the FIDE list, Ruslan Ponomariov and Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

There will be two semi-finals, played on Friday and Saturday July 6 and 7, with the two winners playing the final on Sunday July 8th. The semi-finals and final will consist in four games each.

All games will be played at a rate of 20 minutes for the whole game, with an increment of 10 seconds after each move. In case of a final draw, there will be a tie-break in form of blitz games (5 minutes for each player).

The event was launched in a press conference on Tuesday, April 10th, in the offices of the newspaper Marca, in Madrid, with Boris Spassky and Viswanathan Anand as special guests.

The other assistants to the ceremony were: Miguel Ignacio González Sánchez-Zorita (Director General de Deportes de la Junta de Castilla y León), Santiago Sarmiento (Gerente de Diario de León), Miguel Ignacio González (Director General de Deportes de la Junta de Castilla y León), Gabriel del Pozo (Director of S3P Technlogy), Sebastián Arancio ( S3P), Ángel Almanza (Director of Área Territorial de Cajaduero), Ceferino Hernández Director de Marketing of ALSA, Marcelino Sión Castro, director of the tournament, Javier Ochoa de Echagüen, President of FEDA, and Rafael Alique (Sub Director of Marca).

Miguel Ignacio González Sánchez-Zorita reminded all present that this tournament has been running for twenty years now, and that the Junta of Castilla y León, the organizers, want it to continue for at least twenty more years.

Viswanathan Anand jokingly said that he was not the favourite to win, because he had just won six of the past 19 tournaments. Boris Spassky talked about the metamorphosis that chess has experienced during the last decade, and of course he had to answer some questions about his mythic encounter with Bobby Fischer in 1972, when he “was punished for several psychological mistakes committed under strong pressure.” Spassky will give a press conference about this match during the XX Magistral Ciudad de León.

Two world champions: Boris Spassky and Viswanathan Anand

The sponsors of the 20th Magistral Ciudad de León are: Ayuntamiento de León, la Junta de Castilla y León, la Diputación de León, la Universidad de León, CajaDuero, Alsa, S3P, Editorial Mic, Diario de León and Marca.

• Official web site

Calendar overview of current tournaments