For three days starting Friday April 16, there was confusion about the world champion's location. Anand had intended to fly from Madrid via Frankfurt to Sofia on Friday. But Eyjafjallajökull shut down Europe, leaving him stranded in Germany.
Sofia-Frankfurt is about 1400 km by the shortest overland routes. The Delhi-Kolkata Rajdhani covers that in about 17 hours. But getting to Bulgaria from Germany involves several border crossings. A rail journey involves several changes and takes about 30 hours.
Anand waited, hoping flights would resume. He also requested that the first game, scheduled for April 23, be postponed three days to give him time to rest and acclimatise. On Sunday morning, he embarked on a 40-hour road-odyssey across Austria, Hungary and Romania, taking a longer route to avoid visa issues.
The Sofia Match Organising Committee responded with hysterics to the request for postponement despite it being backed by Fide. Topalov's manager Danailov and Bulgarian Chess Federation president Stefan Sergiev in all apparent seriousness questioned Anand’s motivations for “deliberately” arriving late.
Eventually the Bulgarian Prime Minister stepped in to announce a 24-hour postponement. Topalov drew white at the opening ceremony where both players were present. Assuming no other bizarre incidents occur, Game 1 was on April 24.
Aussie GM Ian Rogers wrote in a trenchant edit “the locals slagged off Anand — for failing to foresee the disruption the volcano would cause. Suffice it to say that Bulgaria is seeing this as a match between their national hero and an inconsiderate, arrogant and pompous World Champion. The rest of the world sees it a little differently. They see a modest World Champion, forced to take a gruelling two day land journey, being insulted and provoked by Topalov and his Machiavellian manager Silvio Danailov and shown scant regard by supposedly impartial organisers.”
The match is obviously not starting in a spirit of bonhomie. Despite the hostile environment and a lower rating, Anand remains marginal favourite on betting sites. Opinion polls suggest Anand is by far more popular since he's favoured 70:30 by fans to retain the title. That appears to be voting with the heart rather than head. A lot will depend on who keeps his cool better in the face of what looks like further, inevitable, off-the-board tension.
The Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (Anand Vs Kempinski, Baden-Baden Vs Hamburg, Bundesliga 2010) is one of Anand's most recent games, against 2616 opposition. The combination involves exploiting dark-square forks plus a weak back-rank. White won with 22. Nxc5! bxc5 (22.-- Nxf7 23. Be5!) 23. Bxe5 Qxe5 24. Bg6! Rg8 25. Bxh7! Kxh7 26. Qh4+ Kg6 27. Rd3 Qh5 28. Rg3+ (1-0) due to 28. - Kh6 29. Qf4+.
