8 players from World Top-100 in Corus B

The strength of the three GM groups of the yearly Corus Chess Tournament is unparalleled and so the line-up for their B and C groups is usually as interesting and impressive as the one for the A group. For the C-list we have to wait till after the Cultural Village Tournament (19–28 November 2007 in Wijk aan Zee), where the winner qualifies, but today the participants of the Corus Chess Tournament B group 2008 have been announced.

Here’s the press release:

World class grandmaster Etienne Bacrot (ranked 23rd) and former World Champion candidate Nigel Short will participate in the very strong edition of the Grandmaster Group B in January 2008. Ten of the fourteen participants have a rating over 2600, while eight of them (Bacrot, Sargissian, Cheparinov, Movsesian, Harikrishna, Krasenkow, Short and Stellwagen) are ranked in the World Top-100.

Among the participants are Krasenkow, Nepomniachtchi and Spoelman, who all qualified via the Grandmastergroup C during the Corus Chess Tournament 2007.

Traditionally there are several youngsters in the B-tournament. Eleven of the fourteen players are under 25 years old. The youngest player is woman grandmaster Hou Yifan from China (13), who played in the Grandmastergroup C last year. Together with 20 years old Koneru Humpy they represent top women chess in the Grandmastergroup B. Koneru has made much progress lately and is likely to be the next female player in the Top-100, after Judit Polgar.

The winner of the Grandmastergroup B will qualify for the Grandmastergroup A in 2009. The Corus Chess Tournament will be held 11 – 27 January 2008.

We mentioned the participants of GM-group A and the four players in the honorary group earlier this month.

Participants Grandmastergroup B 2008

NAME                    COUNTRY         BIRTH YEAR  RATING
GM Etienne Bacrot       France             1983      2695
GM Gabriel Sargissian   Armenia            1983      2673
GM Ivan Cheparinov      Bulgaria           1986      2670
GM Sergey Movsesian     Slovakia           1978      2670
GM Pentala Harikrishna  India              1986      2668
GM Michal Krasenkow     Poland             1963      2668
GM Nigel Short          England            1965      2649
GM Daniel Stellwagen    Netherlands        1987      2639
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi   Russia             1990      2611
GM Koneru Humpy         India              1987      2606
GM Erwin l’Ami          Netherlands        1985      2577
GM Jan Smeets           Netherlands        1985      2558
WGM Hou Yifan           China              1994      2502
IM Wouter Spoelman      Netherlands        1990      2445

Average rating: 2617
Category: 15