Hyderabad: Billed as mega chess event of the year, the second World Chess Cup tournament would get underway here on Wednesday with the battle of ‘brains and wits’ showing up at its best across the chequered board of 64 squares as Grandmasters from across the globe vie for the coveted title and a total prize money of $ 280,000 at stake.

Defending champion Vishwanathan Anand (India) has a mediocre bunch to deal with and in the absence of heavy weights like Kasparov and Kramnik, Anand looks a formidable player to defend his title.

Young Indian knights with full armour P Harikrishna and S S Ganguly have ample space to show their prowess in this edition which runs in a round robin-knock out format to pick a winner from a pack of 24 players each of men and women.

Queen of Indian chess Koneru Humpy leads the national challenge with a strong contingent which takes on the tough Chinese attack spearheaded by Chen Zhu and Yuhua Xu the former being World Women's champion and the later defending champion.

League phase of the tournament would start on October 10 after a formal inauguration on Wednesday.

Chief arbiter Casto P Abundo (Philippines) said 24 players would be divided into four groups for round robin league and top two players would make it to knock-out phase which starts from quarter-finals for men and women.

PTI