The first-ever Category-20 M-Tel Masters chess tournament in Bulgaria is attracting a lot of attention. With the world's top six stars playing - barring Garry Kasparov who announced his retirement in March - the competition has been intense.

Adding to the highly charged atmosphere is the rule "no agreed draws" whereby players cannot offer their rivals draws or speak to them directly.

Despite all this, there is a lot else happening to make the event very interesting, and the organisers could be thinking of making it an annual affair.

Mobile chess tournament:

On the sidelines of the M-Tel Masters tournament, the organisers have put together another unique chess tournament for the 3.4 million clients of GSM operator Mobiltel (M-Tel).

The event called Mobile Chess is open to all subscribing to the service and those wanting to take part are required to download the game through GPRS.

The participants choose to compete against a special server, against a friend or against another mobile opponent selected randomly.

There is a winner for each day, for the week and for the overall tournament, which ends June 12.

The prize for the daily winner - the leader at that point - is 100 levs (about 51 euros), while the weekly winner gets 1,000 levs and the overall winner 10,000 levs.

Besides the cash prize, the top 10 in each category will receive a GPRS/Java mobile phone and a chessboard with the autographs of the participants in the M-Tel Masters 2005 -  Viswanathan Anand, Vesselin Topalov, Vladimir Kramnik, Judith Polgar, Michael Adams and Ruslan Ponomariov.

Players on different floors:

The six players have been accommodated on different floors, and each player's food preference has been catered to carefully. For instance, Anand and Hungarian Polgar have requested for vegetarian food.

Kramnik, who normally has a personal bodyguard, has opted not to have one here. Instead he has a guide to help him around because he is also keen to see Sofia.

Chess in garden:

TO popularise the ongoing M-Tel Masters chess tournament, Bulgarian Minister of Sports Vassil Ivanov unveiled 10 marble chess tables Tuesday, the rest day of the tournament.

The tables were placed by the sponsors in the garden in front of the National Theater. These tables will be a permanent feature and the people will be free to play on them.

As part of the ceremony on the rest day, Bulgarian grand master Topalov gave a performance for 10 amateur players on the marble tables. Among the players was the head coach of Bulgaria's national football team Hristo Stoichkov.

A special painting for the winner:

Apart from hefty prizes from the fund of 300,000 Euros, the winner of the M-Tel Masters will get a copy of the famous painting "Entering Jerusalem" from the Nessebar School by famous Bulgarian icon painter Katia Bajlekova.

The icon is painted on wood with a 23-carat gold cover. The 62 x 45 centimetres painting will be presented to the winner at the closing ceremony Sunday.

Adams to taste Bulgarian wine:

One of the things Bulgaria is famous for is wine. The region best known for wine is Vini-Sliven and Michael Adams is said to be interested in sampling some special selection.

But that is going to be only after the tournament. "I will leave that till the end of the tournament," Adams said.

Meanwhile the organisers have sent each participant a 1.5 litre bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, a vintage wine.

--Indo-Asian News Service