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My favourite too ...

Gerry, 

Done.

Thanks for being a good sport about it.

The players have arrived at Mexico City and the games start in about 36 hours.  This should be fun!

For some reason, the requisite interviews with the players has been postponed.  Apparently there are even problems with having a live broadcast of the tournament.  I know there's a virtual media monopoly in Mexico, but let us have our chess!

Kyle, 

I like your reasons for picking Anand!

I still prefer Kramnik in part because I hate to see Kramnik getting soiled by the attacks of another player in a previous match.  In fact, I don't even like seeing that person's name on the list of players to choose from in this tournament.  But I'm beginning to rant.

If Kramnik doesn't win, I do hope Anand wins.  His previous world championship title wasn't a credible title to me.  If he wins this time, he will follow the "true" lineage from Petrosian's day to now.  I can't think of a more deserving active player who has yet to win it.

BTW, 

Kasparov has said that Anand is the clear favorite.  He also seems to have distanced himself quite a bit from Kramnik in a recent ChessBase/ DNA (Daily News Analysis, India) interview.

I can see Aronian piling up a bunch of wins, but I really think Kramnik is the class of the field at the moment.  His games will likely be of the highest quality, and I suspect he'll find a way to beat Anand and/or Aronian to take first place...

The last world championship showed us that there really is a difference between the very best and the rest.  Before the tournament many of us thought that Polgar had a real chance.  Those who don't have a real chance of winning the tournament, while certainly fantastic players and fully deserving of being there are the ones that the winner(s) will beat up on.

My list of the ones most likely to bleed are:

Peter Svidler.  (I like GM Svidler and have had a couple of conversations with him before he became super-famous.  But he's just not in the same league as Anand.)

Alexander Morozevich.  He's fantastically creative and has played some of the greatest games of this generation.  But he's almost as bad as Ivanchuk when it comes to losing games in weird ways.

Alexander Grischuk.  Grischuk has the style necessary to win, but he hasn't shown that he will be able to stay with the likes of Anand and Kramnik the whole way.  Ok, so I don't see Grischuk losing many games, but I don't see him keeping pace either.

Boris Gefland.  See my comments about Grischuk.  Actually, I think Grischuk's style is better suited for this sort of double round robin, but Gelfand has just a tiny bit more firepower.

That leaves Anand, Kramnik, Aronian, and Leko.  Leko may be the weakest of the top four.  He doesn't seem to have played enough really tough games recently.  It could be that he's been preparing for Mexico, or it could be a sign that he's not really match fit.

I really do see the tournament coming down to Anand and Kramnik.  

All of the players are fabulously strong and capable of losing to anyone else.  However, I won't be surprised if Kramnik and Anand are both undefeated (except perhaps to each other) and the tournament be decided by the number of points they pick up against the field.

Right now, I think there are three active super-stars of chess.  Topalov isn't here, but the other two will probably show once again that they are the best.

We'll find out soon enough how wrong I am!