Details and information from Sofia LIVE!

Welcome to the fun facts day at Chessdom.com. Today besides the live commentary of game 9 we will be providing fun facts from around the playing hall, trying to represent the atmosphere in Sofia. You will learn details from before, during, and after the game, which will be updated every 15 minutes on this page.

12:30 CET

6th of May was supposed to be a rest day due to the initial schedule of the competition. It is the official holiday of Bulgaria’s military and is traditionally celebrated in the Military Club. The volcano in Iceland caused a force majeure situation and the schedule of the Wolrd Chess Championship was changed.

Now they will celebrate on the pavement in front of the Military Club, where parade with tanks and other military divisions will march from 6 pm.

13:30 CET

Half an hour before each game reporters start gathering in front of the stage in the playing hall and try to find the best spot.
Some of them even bring ladders to become taller and be able to use their telephoto lenses. As usual, today there are journalists from all continents in the press room, except Africa and Antarctica. As today is the national holiday, the Bulgarian media presence is less than usual.

13:45 CET

15 minutes before each game on the stage are only the arbiters and maybe the official photographer. Today no big guestss are expected, so the crowd of photographers is eager to get a shot of Aruna Anand, who passes on the stage right side (as every day) and finds her place at the back raws of the audience.

Photo shot of this situation during round 3 here.

13:50 CET

Several minutes later, Anand comes in, shakes hands with the chief arbiter and goes directly to the resting area, where he pours a cup of tea and waits. Meanwhile, the journalists can see on the surveillance cameras that Topalov is being checked before the game and know to expect his appearance soon. These survailence cameras give 4 shots of all the corridors and spaces the players have to walk through to come on stage. Some of the wiser photographers use them to know exactly when the players are going to show up and this way not to miss taking a photo of the handshakes with the arbiters.

13:53 CET

In about 3 minitues Topalov arrives and after the handshake with the chief arbiter, goes to the resting table to pour a glass of water. With his glass he approaches the playing table and puts down the information on the score sheet.
Then, with great courtesy to the journalists, he sits back, looks at the audience and allows everyone to take a good photo of him.

13:55 CET

About 5 minutes before the game Anand joins Topalov on the playing table, one of them standing during the handshake for the round.

13:59 CET

Last, the chief arbiter Nikolopoulos announces the start of the round, reminds the audience to keep quiet and the journalists to use their flashes wisely (not after the first 5 minutes) and wishes both players good luck. There goes the round…

You can view live the game with commentary here, updates will be coming on this page every 15minutes with many similar details from the playing hall. The World Chess Championship is much more than what is happening on the board and we will keep updating you during the whole day on interesting details from the playing hall.

14:05 CET

The journalists are kindly asked to leave the playing area, including the photographers of the official site. The Chessdom staf directly goes to the office to extract the photos, optimize them and upload them in the photo gallery in 10 minutes time for everyone to enjoy.

14:15 CET

Doping controls are needed for any IOC recognized sport. Such are happenning during the WCC in Sofia and are performed by Belin, the same doping officer that checked the players during WCC in Elista. So far two doping controls have been made, after game 3 and after game 7, more are expected to the end of the competition or even today.

14:30 CET

Currently weather in Sofia is changing. In the last days the WCC visitors enjoyed summer temperatures, but now clouds are entering from the west. Rain is expected in an hour and with that air pressure is changing.

According to specialists such air pressure changes affect the mood of people and even performance in sports events. As chess requires concentration, we will see if atmosphere conditions might in any way affect performance of the players.

The fact that rain is coming will surely have one direct effect: people will search for indoor fun and this will increase the audience in the Military Club. There are currently 30 people inside the playing hall, which collects up to 200 spectators.

14:45 CET

This photo is from last year’s parade in front of the Military Club. A multitude of soldiers and tanks are expected to pass in front of the entrance of the playing hall today at 18:00 local time. According to official information, the parade will be inagurated by “Mi-17″ helicopters flying at 100 meters heights at speed 70 km/h, escorted by two Kugars.

Festive fireworks celebration will take place half an hour later at Batenberg square (100meters from the playing hall) where the President of Bulgaria Georgi Parvanov and officials will give speeches.

14:55 CET

The photo album of this round is ready and is at this link with photos added every 5 minutes.

15:15 CET

If you ever wondered wether the surveillance cameras are available to be viewed by the audience, they are. You can see them at this photo.

15:30 CET

As many users asked for statistics, here is a preview. Daily more than 100 000 unique visitors are viewing Chessdom.com during the World Championship. By the end of the event a total of 1 million unique IPs are expected to have checked out the site in 30 day period, with average time online more than 16 minutes per person. Official data will be released after the end of the event with full geo analysis provided by Google analytics.

The official website of Anand – Topalov is registering record visitors for a chess event. Official data will be posted with analysis on Chessdom by Monday, currently details are being compiled.

16:00 CET

Just a few days ago IM Alexander Ipatov, one of the commentators of Anand – Topalov WCC, played a simul against Igrach.com. The event took place 300 meters from the WCC playing hall in the building of Economedia (owners of Dnevnik.bg and Capital newspapers, and publishers of PC World). Here is a video of the simul, details will be posted tomorrow on Chessdom.com.

The photo gallery is also available at this link