The Participating Teams & Their Players

After a day's delay and the sacrifice of the rest day to accommodate the teams with visa problems, the Tata Steel Asian Chess Team Championship is now set to start.

Pairings are out, and the good news of course is all the players are now fully rested, comfortably settled into Kolkata, and raring to go!

Men

In the men's championship, perennial Asia powerhouses India, Vietnam, and Iran, boasting a total of 14 grandmasters in their line ups (out of a possible 15 and the 20 playing in the whole event) are expected to fight for the medals but India B together with the young Indonesia and Singapore teams fronted by grandmasters Susanto Megaranto and Wu Shaobin respectively) and Bangladesh (with veterans grandmasters Ziaur Rahman and Niaz Murshed) will hope to create a few upsets and perhaps even surprise!

India has their top four boards of Harikrishna, Sasikiran, Ganguly. and Negi at 2600+ level with Vietnam boasting two young players in Le Quang Liem and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son with 2600+ while Iran has also one 2600+ player in Ghaem Maghami Ehsan.

Women

Among the women, India and Vietnam are the main contenders for Gold with Iran together with India B and Indonesia also expected to be in the running.

The operative word to describe the women competition is youth and hosts India have fielded two teams of immense (and often precocious) talent while Vietnam and Iran have put together solid well proven line ups while Indonesia continues its policy of also investing in the future.


Pairings & Results will be posted at http://www.chess-results.com/tnr28559.aspx?art=0&lan=1&m=-1&wi=1000 and this link is also on the right menu on this blog together with the link to live games & pgn files.