Carlsen will win. Anand has the match against Topalov to think about but will end up close to the top, Shirov has only won one top tournament in his life and Sofia 2009 won't be repeated soon. In Wijk he was last in his latest start and 9-11th in the one before that.

Ivanchuk is unpredictable and could be the biggest threat against Carlsen. Kramnik never does well in Wijk, his last top three finish was in 2001 as shared third. Karjakin won't repeat last year's result but have a score that is more normal for him (or maybe slightly better than his Grand Prix results):

1. Carlsen
2. Ivanchuk
3. Anand
4. Kramnik
5. Leko
6. Karjakin
7. Domniguez
8. Shirov
9. Nakamura
10. Short
11. Caruana
12. Tiviakov
13. van Wely
14. Smeets

@didrik: what does AZE have to do with this? Forgot about Radjabov?

990% should of course be 90% :)

@Labelled: I agree with you regarding Nakamura. But as far as Shirov is concerned (who was/is also on my list of outsiders): Earlier this year, he won MTel ahead of, among others, Topalov and Carlsen - beating the latter in the decisive final round. What would be better proof for the suggestion that he CAN pull such an upset, form permitting? I repeat that, form lacking, he might also end up on the bottom end of the table.

I agree with most people regarding Aronian, and also with several ones regarding Gashimov. However, @Dikke Deur: What makes you think, what gives you the right to claim that you speak "for most others"? How large would your claimed majority be - 60%, 75%, 990% or 99%?

thx, corrected

I am curious how Giri will do in the B-group. The groups are nice, but i miss Aronian. Someone know why he isn't there?

why is anna muzychuk's federation Russia?

Great field, and good to see Shirov back!

I'm looking forward to see van Wely play. I enjoyed his games during Experience v. Rising Stars.

Not surprising (and justified) that Short was invited, maybe a bit surprising that he accepted the invitation. In the past, he kept saying that he wasn't even interested in playing in the A group ... . This even lead to - ill-founded or absurd - speculations that he lost his decisive game against Caruana on purpose. And back then, I commented that maybe the organizers would annoy him and invite him anyway.
Well, it seems that he changed his mind - he also plays in London, but that tournament on home ground could still have been considered as an honor he couldn't decline.
The other news: no Topalov. Either the organizers couldn't afford him in addition to the other top5 players, or - more likely IMO - Anand and Topalov continue to avoid each other before their WCh match.

Where are Morozevich, Topalov and Aronian?

@MvE

Indeed, where are they? instead the organisers invited Leko for the umpteenth time....

Looking forward to this tournament a lot. Always lots of great games and excellent coverage of the tournament.

Corus is always fun but the field isn't strong for the event, 2008 had Aronian, Topalov, Radjabov, Polgar, Gelfand, Mamedyarov, Adams apart from this year's top players, and no participant below #35. Now it's four players below #55 and some that are weaker than their rating on the list above (Nakamura is down to 2715).

As I wrote before, I think Topalov is absent for a reason. Otherwise, there are always some names missing if you want to have established players, rising stars (Nakamura, Short :) *) and some local names. Like it or not, Leko has a high rating - and several players will "test" his positional, arguably boring style. Maybe Shirov-Leko will turn into an interesting "fire against water" clash? Dortmund may have suffered from the fact that they had too many solid players in the field, not the case for Corus.

If I were to question or criticize one name, it's Tiviakov. When he played Corus in the past he merely tried to draw all of his games, even his white ones. I guess this time he will at least attend the closing ceremony?

* I didn't mention Caruana here because his invitation was obvious (qualifying from this year's B group)

This is how my field would look (if all players were forced to participate):

Topalov
Carlsen
Anand
Aronian
Kramnik
Ivanchuk
Radjabov
Morozevich
Grischuk
Gashimov
Karjakin
Nakamura
Vachier-Lagrave
Caruana

Strange that Aronian will not be present. Lat january he told me, in person, that Corus is his favourite tournament! I'll miss him...

For the rest, like always it looks like a great tournament again. Even the B group is strong, as always. A lot of countries in this world never had a tournament that strong.... ever.

I prefer 14 Shirovs :-)

Carlsen is there too ;-) He might be no.1 of the world then!

@gg: Where would "your" tournament take place? I do not see Corus without a single Dutch player in the A group - even though they are on the bottom of the field ELO-wise.
Partly related, referring to your previous comment: Corus 2008 had a stronger field for three reasons, two largely beyond the organizers' control:

1) Van Wely was, and probably still is, the most "logical" wildcard. He was #35 (2681) at the time, and went down to #86 (2650) - whether 31 ELO points is such a HUGE difference is another story.
BTW, I dare to predict that he will eventually be "dropped", just like Timman was dropped some years ago - and I think both players wouldn't be interested or willing to play in the B group. When might this happen? Maybe when/if Giri overtakes him ELO-wise.

2) The qualifier from the 2007 B group was Eljanov (#27) vs. this time Caruana (#71).

3) Apparently the organizers liked last year's experiment with three Dutch players in the top group, creating additional local media attention. And I think this matters to sponsors more than how the event is received in other countries.

WOW! Many very attractive chess players in the A group: Carlsen, Nakamura, Ivanchuk, Caruana...
Great!

Hm, anybody knows why Hou Yifan isn't playing in Corus B this year? My guess would be that orginally she got invited instead of Anny Muzychuk but declined...she's been playing a lot (and not very well) lately, maybe she needed a break.
Anybody knows?

Pity, I was looking forward to see her playing. :(

Chucky, Shirov and Nakamura in one group looks like entertaining chess though.

@Thomas: My tournament would take place in Shangri-La... I understand the three Dutch players thing but wasn't too excited by Smeets last year (or Tiviakov before that). He went for the draw as soon as possible with white and hoped to hang on with black, was never better in any game even if he won one "by accident" when Ivanchuk flagged on move 40, so I'd rather see Aronian or Radjabov in his place.

Aronian won in 2007 and 2008 and was 0.5 from winning in 2009, Radjabov has won or been 0.5 from first place three years in a row, both of them after playing lots of highly entertaining games every year. With all respect for players like Tiviakov, Short or Smeets I would have found it more fun to see Aronian and Radjabov (or Morozevich or Grischuk). But it's definitely up to the organisers to invite what players they want without asking for my preferences :-)

I'd like very much to see this year's Chinese champion, the young Ding Liren in the B-group, or at least in the C-group. Would be very interesting to see how he'd perform in an international setting of this caliber. (Anyone hasn't yet seen his win against Wang Hao from the Chinese championship, pls check it out, pretty impressive: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1546339)

What about Gashimov?
.How high rating does a AZE guy have to have to get invited to european tournaments. I remember I read an intrview with him where he basicly cried out I want to play chess please invite me.When did he play a regular round robin tournament in Europe? poor guy. I mean he is 7th on the live list. How high does he have to get?

I'd like to see Karjakin can have his best form and catch up Carlsen.

@ Jarvis

Funny, I was thinking the same thing- I hope for Ding Liren too!
His ELO is probably too low for the B-Group, but I hope he will play in the C-Group- with his potential he'd have a good chance to win it.

Talking about chinese players I would have liked to see Wang Hao in the B-Group too, but I'm afraid Bu, Wang Yue and this time Ni get most of the invitations...

A fantastic list for A&B! Even B has my mouth watering. The only disappointment is the lack of Aronian in the A group.

In my opinion having local players and not-quite-elite players makes for a much more interesting tournament. Who needs to see the top 8 playing themselves for the 1000000th time? Much more interesting to give others a chance to play them and maybe break through to their level, which will only happen if these others get the chance to play the elite players regularly.

Can anyone except Carlsen, Anand or Kramnik win this tournament??? Personally I doubt that very much......

It will be interesting to see wether Carlsen can obtain his good form or not. Maybe he is playing too much..... His head must be pretty close to exploding after all those important games his playing combined with his "resting" periods with Kasparov breathing down his neck.

To me it seems like a constant headache....

The proof will be in the pudding. The first bowlful was delicious.

@labelled

LOL? You're joking right? With players like Ivanchuk, Shirov, Short, Nakamura in the field... you're already writing them off?

Don't forget Karjakin won last year... and Leko is still a tough cookie.

@Labelled: I would give Shirov and Ivanchuk outsider chances for first place. But, given their past results, I also wouldn't be very surprised if one of them finished in last place .... .
@JustBe: With 14 Shirovs, you would get both of it and everything in between :)

@gg:

Quote: "I understand the three Dutch players thing but wasn’t too excited by Smeets last year (or Tiviakov before that). He went for the draw as soon as possible with white and hoped to hang on with black, was never better in any game even if he won one “by accident” when Ivanchuk flagged on move 40, so I’d rather see Aronian or Radjabov in his place."

This is simply not true. Smeets has been fighting for a win on many occasions. But it kind of hard if almost all players have more than 100 ELO points more than he had. Tiviakov is more a player likely to only score draws.

And of course it is nice to have some of our local hero's there. It's a Dutch tournament. A shame that van Wely never did perform like he can (could) in Wijk aan Zee. The last Dutch born player really performing the was Jeroen Piket. Shame he decided to pursue another career.

@Thomas: Van Wely has been a 2700+ player for a short while, number 10 in the world. He never reached that level since.

@CAL|Daniel: Nakamura? He doesn't have a change to win it. At least not the coming 2 or 3 years. Probably never. You're American I guess? ;-)

Short is to old. The tournament is too long for him to win it. He had his time. But he is always a dangerous opponent for every player.

of course Nakamura has a chance but my point was merely to point out how crazy Labelled is.

Aside from Topalov , Aronian and Morozevich shining by their absence , it's really a pity there is no Svidler and Grischuk either , both are very interesting to watch and extremely strong , likely to give the favourites a good run for their money .

i 'd have liked to see the young Vachier-Lagrave there .. it was a very important chance for him to get valuable experience .. Also i'd have prefered to see the likesof Gelfand , Gashimov , Ponomariov or even Naiditsch who won Montreat recently instead of some selected ..

well , i'm pretty disappointed by the selection overall tbh .. although i'm happy to see that Carlsen , Kramnik , Anand , Ivanchuk and Shirov will be there

hmm yea , Naiditsch wiull be there but in B group sorry

WHERE IS ARONIAN?

Corus is just a chance for these guys to play some coffee shop chess and see their favorite girls in the soft red light of the old town.

I am glad Anand decided to play both the Tal memorial and Corus considering that his match against Topalov will be early 2010. Ofcourse, considering the state of affairs, nothing is certain about the match.

But what is obvious is the playing of one has prompted the other (Topalov) to not play in both these tournaments. The same reason why Topalov and not Anand played in Nanjing.

Curious what will happen for Linares 2010.

Hmmm.

Why is dominguez playing here. Dont like him at all. With Aronian it would be much better. I also dont understand what Tiviakov is doing in this field. He is not dutch but former Russian and not that strong player. Smeets and Van wely Rule!

Karjakin is good to c. I think i will visit Wijk aan Zee this year after a few years again.

ANY tournament with KING CHUCKY in it is a good one.....he will show fishy, the runt and others whose boss.

Oh by the way. Lets not discuss who will winn.

Lets talk about who has a chance to get second place as obvious Carlsen will take it .... can truly someone still doubt that???

That's an awesome field. BTW, this is a great site. Enjoyed your timely and in depth coverage of Nanjing.

Kramnik will win Corus 2010!

@JustBe
#1 Don't mean much....
Carlsparov should instead focus on getting prepared for a match with Anand or Topalov. for the world championship.
Carlsen would get the # 1 rank because of his talent.

If FIDE decides to set a Mexico style championhip tournament than Carlsen stand a great chance of gaining the world championship (he proved he can win in china...) but he's not been tested in match play yet....

Kudos to Kasparov for pulling him out of the European team championship nad getting ready fro the Tal memeorial - that's smart planning!

@PP (NL): Yes I know - those were the days when up to three Dutch players (Timman, Piket, van Wely) could play Corus A without really requiring a wildcard [read: at least one of them may also have been invited if he wasn't Dutch, and they were invited to other supertournaments].

I think that was rather unique in the history of supertournament outside of Russia/Soviet Union. Germany (Dortmund) had Huebner, but only Huebner - maybe now Naiditsch at least knocking at the 2700 door. Spain (Linares, others such as Dos Hermanas) had and has "import" Shirov - other players (Illescas, Vallejo Pons) were "reasonable wildcards. England had many top players through time (Nunn, Miles, Speelman, Short, Adams) but for many years didn't have a supertournament ... .

As far as van Wely is concerned, at least he has a spectacular style: even when he is losing a lot he plays interesting games and is always capable of one or two upsets. I remember one Corus tournament when he kept losing with the Najdorf, but remained faithful to this line - must have been a few years ago, one of his losses was against Kasparov.

Great to see GM Nyback in group B.

I think the B-group is where the disappointment comes in. Last year we had Kasimdzhanov, Motylev, Vallejo! And what about Rublevsky, Vitiugov and all the other promising Russians?

As far as the A-group goes, I also miss Aronian!

@?CAL|Daniel:

I see your point..... But obviously the names you`re mentioning are nothing but curious outsiders. I`ll bet a decent amount at the bookies that Carlsen, Anand and Kramnik will all be amongst the top 4 at CORUS 2010.

Maybe Karjakin can get his foot in if he`s on a good roll. Maybe Ivanchuk..... But Shirov and Nakamura??? You have to ask yourself the same question as you asked me: Are you joking???

I hope we all will enjoy a tournament of great chess there anyway...... Will Carlsen cope with the pressure?? It`s obviously growing and I`ll bet expecially Anand will give him a run for the money......

In A group i would exchange Peter Leko (AKA Peter Boring) with Morozevich.

Me, like most others, would happily trade Leko and Tiviakov for Aronian and Topalov or Morozevich.

Cannot understand why Leko got invited.

This would be my desired field for the A Group: (in live rating order)

1. Topalov
2. Carlsen
3. Anand
4. Aronian
5. Kramnik
6. Gelfand
7. Gashimov
8. Svidler
9. Morozevich
10. Ivanchuk
11. Karjakin
12. Shirov
13. Nakamura
14. Caruana

I am guessing that would give the tournament an average rating of about 2750. :)

Desired field for B Group:

1. Mamedyarov
2. Dominguez
3. Movsesian
4. Alekseev
5. Vallejo
6. Wang Hao
7. Tomashevsky
8. Navara
9. Short
10. Kasimdzhanov
11. Motylev
12. Tiviakov
13. Van Wely
14. Smeets

That would be an average rating of about 2700. :)

Anyway, it would be impossible to get a field this strong in both the A and B Group with 14 spots to fill...

gg, nice analysis of the situation!

There is only one thing even more boring than Leko's style, the always present dull comments about it. Everytime Leko shows up at a tournament one should be sure that some "chess experts" will find an opportunity to blame his style. To be frank I prefer to follow online more a Moro-Ivanchuk than a Wang Yue-Leko, BUT you should accept that his style fits the logic of chess as well. And it if you are sensitve enough it is possible to see an other kind of beauty of chess.

Hi, thanks for the infos.

I was wondering if Chessvibes could explain to us how the "circuit" of top GMs tournament work. How are the players chosen: are they paid? selected thanks to their ranking? Or only the whim of the organizers?

I'm surely being jingoistic, but I don't get why our 2 best players (Bacrot & Vachier Lagrave) aren't in A or B tournament. They both have decent ranking (above 2700 elo) and I don't see why they would decline an invitation.

Explanations welcome!!!

S

Quite some people wonder why Leko gets so many invitations for supertournaments, although he's not popular among the chess-loving public and
his style is perceived as boring.
Of course he's a very solid player with a high Elo, but there's another explanation
as well : he has a well performing manager (Carsten Hensel) who has an excellent network in the world of chess tournaments.

@Simon: I will try to explain, or speculate around a bit. Concerning next year's A group, we already have
- three Dutch [I consider this organizers' preference - or bias if you want to - fully legitimate]
- one Italian (Caruana) who qualified from the previous B group
- one Englishman [Nigel Short is popular with the organizers]
- one "semi-Spanish" (Shirov)
This may simply be enough as far as western Europe is concerned?

BTW, your two countrymen have played Corus in the past: Bacrot in the B-group 2008, in the A-group 2006, Vachier-Lagrave in the B-group in 2007 (when his rating was 2573, world #234) - didn't look further back in time. Apart from some "obvious names", the organizers may not want to invite the same players year after year? In any case, I don't think it's a question of anti-French feelings in the Netherlands, even if they exist to some extent [says a German living in NL, who has also spent 1 1/2 years in France in his younger years].

Moreover, rather than complaining about lack of invitations elsewhere, France could also organize a strong event in their country. I said the same to Americans complaining about lacking invitations for Nakamura ... .

Simon , i woud like to have this explanation as well .

The fact there is no French billionaire fan of chess ready to invest or any French company willing to sponsor high profile chess events because of a lack of interest for chess by the public at large is a pity . We give many GM for a country where Chess is far less popular that several dozens of sports , but sadly Chess lacks popularity in the country , people here prefer to go out and do all type of sports , i'm sure there are more surfers than chess players here , so it is not the ideal place to organize high profile chess tournament for sponsors . I mean there was the Amber tournament , it was in our country , but financed by a rich Dutch guy

Also , There are many top GM 2700's in the world , Corus or Dortmund organizers have to make choices and still get some room for their local players , they also have to pay everyone , thus players like Gashimov , Grischuk , Svidler etc.. ( not just our players Maxime and Etienne ) don't get invitations this time sadly , even if they deserve it more based on rating and recent performances than many other players invited .

Thanks for the explanation.
Yes it's not altogether clear why we are currently deprived of at least or two tycoons who would spend some of his euros on chess.
But it doesn't change the fact that the system seem pretty dark and (in my view) should become more like tennis: you're invited according to your rating & ranking.

@Simon: "But it doesn’t change the fact that the system seem pretty dark and (in my view) should become more like tennis: you’re invited according to your rating & ranking"

That means having similar tournaments all the time.

I do not see the problem. If you would be paying for a tournament, I would want to decide who I want to invite... This is not tennis you know! ;-)

@Simon: Concerning your idea of being "invited according to your rating & ranking":
1) I am not even sure that Vachier-Lagrave (currently #23) or Bacrot (#28) would benefit from such a system - OK, both should play Corus B if the organizers invited #15-28 :)
2) The FIDE Grandprix tournaments come rather close to your system. But it was difficult to find sponsors - for reasons given by PP (NL)?
3) As far as the initial number of players is concerned, tennis tournaments are more comparable to chess opens, which (what's in a name?) are open to anyone.

BTW (wandering a bit off-topic): There seems to be at least some money in/for French chess. Evry Grand Roque has a rather strong team for the French team championship, though not for the European Club Cup (BTW, what happened to NAO Paris?). There is also a strong locally financed(?) rapid event in Cap d'Agde.

And overall your two names can't really complain that they are systematically ignored by the rest of the world. This year, Bacrot played FIDE GP events, Aeroflot Open, Dortmund (the organizers give a spot to the Aeroflot winner), second-tier GM tournaments in Montreal and Antwerpen and the European Club Cup (for Baden-Baden, paid by a German tycoon). At the start of Inventi Chess in Antwerpen, he mentioned - not complaining, just mentioning - that he played maybe too much rather than not enough. Vachier-Lagrave at least played San Sebastian and Biel.

Leko is the by far most popular player among tournament organizers the last dozen years (compare Dortmund, Linares and Corus starts with those of all other top players). Thanks to his popularity he is invited much more often than some players that are seen as less attractive options by the organizers.

They invite whoever they want, but as with other players there will always be a debate between those that like things as they are and those with other preferences. Leko is OK by me, he is a top rated player, even if I personally would have liked it better with Aronian or Radjabov since they are the two players with the best Corus results over the last years. But I'm not the one paying to get Leko instead so not much to complain about.

Grischuk is a player I'd like to see much more often. He has been invited three times to Wijk and finished 4th as worst. He won Elista GP in December, Linares in March, and was second in the Grand Slam final last month.

It's hard to argue against "the organizers invite whoever they want". On the other hand it's also hard to explain Aronian's absence.

I guess most people would be interested to see both Aronian and Carlsen in this tournament. More so, after their overall performance in 2009. Both of them are now amongst the top five and both are possible future WC challengers.