Other Indians vying for the top honours in the Rs 12 lakh prize-money strongest-ever chess tournament in the country include 2008 World Champion GM Abhijeet Gupta and world's second youngest Grandmaster Negi.
This year's star attraction would be GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland. Wojtaszek is a top-50 player in the world and would be looking to add valuable rating points to his tally.
Leading the charge of challengers against him would be GM Anton Korobov of Ukraine, who boasts of a 2700+ rating and Russia's in-form player GM Evgeny Alekseev.
The participants, with an average rating of over 2675 ELO rating points, will play each other twice -- once with white pieces and once with black.
The winner will take home the purse of Rs 4 lakh.
The championship will be declared open tomorrow evening at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.
The inauguration will coincide with the closing ceremony of the ongoing Asian School chess championship currently underway at the IGI Stadium.