Candidates’ tournament. Semifinals. Grishchuk draws with Kramnik, Gelfand draws with Kamsky

Candidates’ tournament

Kazan, Russia

Semifinals

First games

Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2747) – Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2785) – 0.5:0.5

Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2733) – Gata Kamsky (USA, 2732) – 0.5:0.5

The four chess masters will define the contender for the world champion title, who will play the acting champion Viswanathan Anand in 2012.

In semifinals the opponents will play 4 games with time control of 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20 moves, and 15 minutes until the end of the game with 30 seconds added for each move starting with 61th move. In case of a draw a tie-break should be played (on May 16).

Prize money – €420.000. Magnus Carlsen from Norway has withdrawn from the candidates’ tournament before its start claiming the system to be unfair.