The "Super Final" of the 57th Russian Championship was originally supposed to take place in September 2004, but at the request of Kramnik, who cited his match against Leko, it was moved to November 2004. The Super Final pits the winners of two quailification championships held earlier this year in St. Petersburg and Tomsk, against the top Russian players Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Morozevich, Peter Svidler, Evgeny Bareev, Alexander Grischuk and Anatoly Karpov. They are joined by the following players:
As we have just learnt from informed sources in Moscow, Vladimir Kramnik has cancelled his participation. The classical chess world champion sent the organisers a letter (in French) by his doctor saying that Kramnik had been under too much stress and would not be able to play in a tournament for two months. The letter is dated November 3, 2004.
We have no independent verification of this information, but expect more details on the Super Final soon. We will update this page if more detailed news is available soon.
