World Chess Championship - Mexico 2007

Just 6 weeks to go until the most eagerly awaited tournament of the year and who looks in fine fettle to make a charge for the World Title?

Ok, so we now know that there are lots of matches, rematches planned depending upon who wins, and yes it's frustrating that such a prestigious tournament doesn't have Topalov or the supremely in-form Ivanchuk participating, but quite frankly I'm just completely bored with all the political wrangling.

So let's just focus here totally on the players that are playing in most likely the last tournament of this kind for the title of World Chess Champion.

Vladimir Kramnik - Current World Chess Champion. Very strong performance in Dortmund, very doubtful that he'll lose many games, if any at all. Is the big question, will he draw too many games?

Vishwanathan Anand - No.1 in the World rankings. Will win his fair share of games with White, but will he lose too many with the Black pieces?

Peter Leko - Qualified through the Elista Candidates tournament pretty impressively, and had a strong performance in Dortmund, will he to draw too many games. Is his best strategy to avoid quick draws and exploit his reknowned technical skills?

Alexander Morozevich - Didn't manage to get his final preparation in, when he was forced to pull out of Biel. Which Moro will turn up, the one who is unstoppable or the one who struggles to perform consistently in this level of competition?

Levon Aronian - Gave Kramnik a beating in rapid, and has also accounted for Anand at the same speed. Can he win against the big boys at the longer distance? Will he surprise everyone with an e4 repertoire? Probably not, expect a solid tournament though.

Alexander Grischuk - Another candidates qualifier, where he played very well. Then he turns up at Biel and performs very sporadically, comments from Chessbase that he was too young to play the Slav were quite controversial, but I think he's definitely too young to win this. Will be great experience for him though I'm sure.

Peter Svidler - Hmm! Slipped down to number 12 in the ratings, has been completely indifferent so far this year, so what can we expect from him in Mexico? Quite frankly I have no idea.

Nearly forgot,

Boris Gelfand - Probably a surprise that he qualified, but he did. This level of compeition much the same as for Grischuk might be too much for him, but he seems to be very strong willed and if he gets into a scrap I wouldn't bet against him. Won't win enough to be higher than mid-table though.

That's my thoughts folks, I believe it'll be a tussle between Kramnik, Anand and Leko with Aronian leading the chasing pack and I slightly favour Vlad to pull it off. Please feel free to disagree with me, and please do have a vote on my sidebar.

Best wishes, Juicy.