World Chess Championship to be held in Germany
December 20, 2007
Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik battle for the highest chess title in October 2008

  • When: From October 11 – 30, 2008
  • Where: Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn
  • Overall Prize fund: 1,5 Million Euro
  • Patron: German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück
  • Main sponsor: Evonik Industries AG

Dortmund. The World Chess Championship will be held from October 11 to 30, 2008 in the  Art  and  Exhibition  Hall  of  the  Federal  Republic  of  Germany  in  Bonn,  between Viswanathan Anand (India) and Vladimir Kramnik (Russia).

The match will consist of twelve games, played under classical time controls, in the period from October 11 to October 28, 2008. If there is a tie at the end of these games a tiebreak will be played on October 30, 2008. The prize fund, which will be split equally between the players, is 1,5 million Euro (approximately 2,1 million US Dollars) including taxes and FIDE licensee fees.

Viswanathan Anand (37) and Vladimir Kramnik (32) are the two outstanding personalities in chess today. The world championship match between them is keenly anticipated by chess fans  all  over  the  world.  It  is  part  of  a  120-year  tradition  of  chess  history,  which  includes matches   like   Capablanca-Alekhine,   Fischer-Spassky,   Kasparov-Karpov   and   Kramnik- Topalov.

The reigning and undisputed World Champion Anand won his title in September 2007 at the World Championship tournament in Mexico City. Kramnik, who was undefeated in his three world championship matches, became second in this double round robin event.

The  World  Chess  Championship  2008  takes  place  under  the  patronage  of  the  German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, who is himself an enthusiastic and ambitious chess player.

The main sponsor of the World Championship is Evonik Industries. This industrial enterprise is  located  in  Essen,  Germany,  and  was  the  exclusive  sponsor  of  the  2006  World  Chess Challenge between Vladimir Kramnik and the chess program Deep Fritz.

The World Chess Championship 2008 in Bonn will be organized with the full cooperation of the World Chess Federation FIDE and it’s President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. FIDE has its main office in Athens, Greece, and is the head of 161 national chess federations with 40 million active chess players, making it one of the world’s largest sporting organizations.

The organizer of the World Championship 2008 is Universal Event Promotion (UEP), which is located in Dortmund (Germany) and has received all rights for the event from FIDE. UEP staged the World Chess Challenge between Vladimir Kramnik and the chess program Deep Fritz  in  2006,  an  event  that  drew  worldwide  media  attention  and  was  very  successfully commercialised.

Official World Championship web site of the organizer: www.uep-worldchess.com
Press contact: Rolf Behovits
Universal Event Promotion Press Officer Tel.: +49-170-2317139
Email: [email protected]

Links:

World Chess Federation FIDE: www.fide.com
Evonik Industries AG: www.evonik.com
Home page of V. Anand: www.tnq.in/vishwa.html
Home page of V. Kramnik: www.kramnik.com
Federal Art Hall Bonn: www.kah-bonn.de

Evonik Industries: company information

Evonik Industries is the creative industrial group which operates in three highly profitable, promising business areas: Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. Evonik is a global leader in specialty chemicals, an expert in power generation from hard coal and renewable energies, and one of the largest private residential real estate companies in Germany. The strengths of Evonik are creativity, specialization, continuous self-renewal, and reliability.

Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world. In fiscal 2006 around 43,000 employees generated sales of €14.8 billion and an opear ting profit (EBIT) of over €1.2 billion. Evonik plans to enter the capital markets in the first half of 2008.

Press contact Evonik Industries: Sabrina Herich
Evonik Industries Tel.: +49-201-177-2225
Email: [email protected]