Corus: Group A announced
Magnus Carlsen, who will turn 18 in less than a month, is one of the favourites to win the 2009 Corus Chess Tournament, and so are Alexander Morozevich, Vassily Ivanchuk and Levon Aronian. Today the participants list of the A Group was officially announced.
Anand, Kramnik and Topalov were all invited, but unfortunately all three declined for this year's edition. Here's the press release which we received just minutes ago from the organizers:
Carlsen, Ivanchuk and Morozevich favourites in 71st Corus Chess Tournament
CORUS CHESS PRESS, November 2008 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äô 17-year-old Magnus Carlsen is one of the favourites to win the 71st edition of the Corus Chess Tournament, together with routiniers Alexander Morozevich and Vassily Ivanchuk. The Corus Chess Tournament will take place from Friday, January 16th to Sunday, February 1st, 2009 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Magnus Carlsen (Norway) won the jubilee event in January this year together with the Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian. Like Carlsen, Aronian is also one of the participants in next year's event.
The two titleholders will meet Alexander Morozevich (Russia) and Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), as their main rivals. Morozevich and Ivanchuk had a very successful year in 2008 and are currently ranked second and third in the world.
Five players will make their debut in the A-group: the young Dutch grandmasters Jan Smeets and Daniel Stellwagen, the sensational Wang Yue from China, who climbed up to the 11th place on the latest world ranking list, the winner of Grandmastergroup B in 2008, Sergei Movsesian, and the flamboyant grandmaster Leinier Dominguez from Cuba (ranked 21st on the FIDE October rating list).
[TABLE=446] Average rating: 2719
Category: 19The official participants lists of Grandmaster groups B and C will be published later this year. Together with all amateur players and participants in the special groups, approximately 2,000 chess players are expected to come to Wijk aan Zee for the traditional chess festival in the small beach village at the west coast of The Netherlands, approximately 25 kilometers from Amsterdam.
New rate of play in 2009
As from January 2009, the rate of play in Grandmaster groups A, B and C will change. The rate of play will be: 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour, followed by 15 minutes with 30 seconds per move increment to finish the game.
Founder and editor-in-chief of ChessVibes.com, Peter is responsible for most of the chess news and tournament reports. Often visiting top events, he also provides photos and videos for the site. He's a 1.e4 player himself, likes Thai food and the Stones.
Comments
pete
3 years 3 months ago
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seens to me it will not be that interesting as previous years. No offense to the Dutch players, but they do not belong to the A group ... look at their elo 2604 - 2618 ... c'mon.
@Peter: do you hvae any info on why Anand, Kramnik and Topalov declined the invitation?
iLane
3 years 3 months ago
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Last year the avg was 2742, so 2719 is not that bad at all. And it's always good idea to give chance to young local players. It would be boring to watch the same 10 players all the time, isn't it?
Arne Moll
3 years 3 months ago
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Hm... no Anand, no Kramnik, no Topalov ... rating isn't everything, Corus without any of these names just isn't the same Corus in my opinion.
Peter Doggers
3 years 3 months ago
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@Pete
No, I only about Anand that there isn't a specific reason; after so many tourneys in Wijk he just wanted to skip a year.
Dave Bee
3 years 3 months ago
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Yes - the gradings of the Dutch contingent do seem a bit low for the event. Does anyone know if Tiviakov was invited?
Nxf7
3 years 3 months ago
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Pete,
iIt's still adutch tournament if you like it or not...
Dave Bee
***rest of comment deleted, please don't post such crap anonimously***
philipp
3 years 3 months ago
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I like that there are three dutch players, look at dortmund where the german naiditsch even won having a elo of 26some, he also was only invited because he s german look at gustafsons performance in dortmund as well.
I dislike adams to be nominated , i would have liked to see caruna or vachier-lagrave some young fighters
best regards
philipp
3 years 3 months ago
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as well kasmky shouldnt be nominated for making so much trouble in regard of the topalov match
Peter Doggers
3 years 3 months ago
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Yeah, right. He's been really pissing us off lately, and shouldn't be invited to tournaments anymore. Never ever. Right?
Brechtt
3 years 3 months ago
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Why is there no:
Hikaru Nakurama?
Svidle?
Karpov?
Barcot?
and others?
So limited??
Manu
3 years 3 months ago
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IMO This year Dominguez is the guy to watch, along with Carlsen and Wang Yue.
Arnd
3 years 3 months ago
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A step in the right direction, a more diverse group of participants makes for an more interesting tournament as long as competition for first place is assured.
pete
3 years 3 months ago
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@Dave Bee: I know it is a Dutch tournament, but these guys are more for the B group. Look at the players that participated in the B group in the last Corus:
GM Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2713
GM Etienne Bacrot FRA 2700
GM Sergey Movsesian SVK 2677
GM Gabriel Sargissian ARM 2676
GM Pentala Harikrishna IND 2664
GM Nigel Short ENG 2645
GM Michal Krasenkow POL 2636
GM Daniel Stellwagen NED 2625
GM Humpy Koneru IND 2612
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi RUS 2600
and compare them with the three Dutch players that will play next year in the A group ... see the difference ;).
@Peter: thanks
jussu
3 years 3 months ago
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"A step in the right direction, a more diverse group of participants makes for an more interesting tournament as long as competition for first place is assured."
In principle, I agree, but I would rather like to see a contiguous gradient in participants' strength than a huge gap between those who will collect points and those who will collect zeros.
guitarspider
3 years 3 months ago
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I think it's a very good idea to invite local players, it makes the tournament so much more interesting. There are too many "Top Ten only" events.
Aronian will win this one, have you seen his game against Volokitin at the ECC?
glenn
3 years 3 months ago
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Hikaru Nakurama would probably win this tournament. The organizers just don't want him to shine.
manow
3 years 3 months ago
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lol yes, thats why they didnt invite nakamura, they must be pretty pissed of now that you found out the real reason behind it.
Anand
3 years 3 months ago
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Having local players may be fine, but given their relatively poor ratings, it will make the tournament less interesting.
Also, players like Anand & Topalov add a certain magic to a tournament, which will certainly be missing here. Kramnik may not be missed so much as he draws so many of his games and his attitude seems rarely to push for wins.
Ben
3 years 3 months ago
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@Peter Doggers(1st comment)
Isn't the reason that he 'just wanted to skip one year' a very specific one? ;)
Although it's a shame both Topalov, Anand and Kramnik declined, I still believe it will be an interesting tournament. Ivanchuk, Carlsen and Morozevich are very strong players :)
Peter Doggers
3 years 3 months ago
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Well, I was kind of expecting someone to ask "yes, but why is he skipping"? ;-)
Arjo
3 years 3 months ago
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Stellwagen is doing great in the Bundesliga!
http://www.schachbundesliga.de/vereine/spieler_karte.aspx?pid=167&vnr=12...
Ben
3 years 3 months ago
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so, umm, why is he skipping?
Ben
3 years 3 months ago
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@dude above me
So, umm why are you using my name to comment?
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