Thaindian News

Wijk Aan Zee (Netherlands), Jan 10 (IANS) India’s growing might in chess will once again be in full view as a record five Indian players will feature at the 2010 Corus Grandmasters Chess tournament at the Dutch seaside town of Wijk Aan Zee.
The tournament will be held Jan 15-31 at the traditional De Moriaan Community Centre.

Apart from hosts the Netherlands, no other country has more than three participants in all three categories put together while India has five. The Corus Grandmasters Chess tournament is considered one of the strongest and biggest classical chess events in the world.

While Viswanathan Anand, the reigning World Champion, and a five-time winner here, has been a regular feature in the highest category ‘A Group’, India will have two participants - Pentala Harikrishna and Parimarjan Negi - in ‘B’ and two others - Abhijeet Gupta and Sowmya Swaminathan - in the ‘C’ category.

Four - Anand, Hari, Abhijeet and Sowmya - of the five Indians have won the World junior titles, while the fifth Negi - holds the record for being the youngest Indian Grandmaster.

Three of the other four Indians are World junior champions, a title Anand was the first to win from India. Anand won the title in 1987, and Harikrishna, won the same in 2004. Hari will play in the ‘B’ category as will Negi, who broke Harikrishna’s record of being the youngest Indian Grandmaster in 2006 at the age of 13 years and four months. Negi is now 16. Before Hari, the record was held by Anand, who was 18 when he became a GM. Hari, who became a GM at the age of 15, is now 23.

The two other Indians in ‘C’ category are Gupta, 20, the World junior champion of 2008 and Sowmya, 20, the World Junior champion among girls in 2009.

Anand is the second highest rated player at 2790 while the highest is Magnus Carlsen at 2810. Hari is the third highest in Category ‘B’ at 2672 and in Category ‘C’, Abhijeet is the second highest at 2577. Negi is rated 2621 and Sowmya 2323.

The Corus Chess Tournament has three main tournaments. They are played according to the ’round robin’ system, whereby each competitor plays in turn against every other during the tournament. All three Grandmaster groups have 14 players and start on Jan 16 after a formal opening a day earlier.

All rounds begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round Jan 31, which begins at 12.30 hours. The rest days are Jan 20, 25, and 28.