So vies in tough Corus tourney

GM Wesley So makes a rare appearance in the prestigious 71st Corus Chess Tournament scheduled Jan. 16-Feb. 1 at the De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.

So, who became the country’s highest-rated player in history with an ELO of 2627 early this month, will participate in the category-11, 14-player GM-Group C tournament.

“I will do my best to perform well there (Corus) and bring honors to the country again,” said So, who is scheduled to leave Manila at 11:45 a.m. today, together with his father-manager William.

The two are expected to arrive in the Dutch seaside town of Wijkaan Zee the following day.        

So’s international campaign is also supported by National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) president Prospero “Butch” Pichay. The 15-year-old high school student from Bacoor, Cavite is the top seed in Group C, which also include perennial rival GMs David Howell (ELO 2622) of England and Tiger Persson (ELO 2586) of Sweden.

Also entered in Group C are GM Abhijeet Gupta (ELO 2569) of India, GM Friso Nijboer (ELO 2560) of Netherlands, GM Manuel Leon Hoyos (ELO 2542) of Mexico, GM Oleg Romanishin (ELO 2533) of Ukraine, GM Eduardo Iturrizaga (ELO   2528) of Venezuela, GM Frank Holzke (ELO 2524) of Germany, WGM Dronavaili Harika (ELO 2473) of India, FM Anish Giri (ELO 2469) of Russia and IMs Roeland Pruijssers (ELO 2444), Manuel Bosboom (ELO 2418) and Ali Bitalzadeh (ELO 2400), all of Netherlands.

Last year, GM Fabiano Caruana (ELO 2646) of Italy topped the event with 10 points, two points ahead of his nearest rival.

Twenty-eight top-rated players, led by world No. 3 GM Vassily Ivanchuk (ELO 2779) of Ukraine and world No. 4   GM Magnus Carlsen (ELO 2776) of Norway, are also seeing action in this annual event, formerly known as   Hoogovens tournament.

The other participants are:

GM Group A (category-19) - GM Alexander Morozevich (ELO 2771) of Russia, GMTeymour Radjabov (ELO 2761) of Azerbaijan, GM Sergei Movsesian (ELO 2751) of Slovakia, GM Levon Aronian (ELO 2750) of Armenia, GM Wang Yue (ELO 2739) of China, GM Gata Kamsky (ELO 2725) of the United States,   GM Leinier Dominguez (ELO 2717) of Cuba, GMMichael Adams (ELO 2712) of England, GM Sergei Karjakin (ELO 2706) of Ukraine, GMLoek van Wely (ELO 2625) of Netherlands, GM Daniel Stellwagen (ELO 2612) of Netherlands and GM Jan Smeets (ELO 2601) of Netherlands.

GM Group B (category 16) - GM Krishnan Sasikiran (ELO 2711) of India, GM Francisco Vallejo Pons (ELO 2702) of Spain, GM Zahar Efimenko (ELO 2688) of Ukraine, GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov (ELO 2687) of Uzbekistan,   GM Alexander Motylev (ELO 2676) of Russia, GM Andrei Volokitin (EO 2671) of Ukraine, GM Nigel Short (ELO 2663) of England, GM Fabiano Caruana (ELO 2646) of Italy, GM David Navara (ELO 2638) of Czech Republic, GM Jan Werle (ELO 2607) of Netherlands, GM Erwin l’Ami (ELO 2603) of Netherlands, WGM Hou Yifan (ELO 2571) of China, GMHenrique Mecking (ELO 2567) of Brazil and GM Dimitri Reinderman (ELO 2549) of Netherlands.

Regarded as one of the world’s strongest tournaments, the annual competition is held every January in the small town of Wijk aan Zee in the province of North Holland.

It was called the Hoogovens tournament until 1999 after which the Dutch steel and aluminum Koninkiljke Hoogovens merged with the Brisitsh Steel to form the Corus Group.

Since 1938, the tournamwnt regularly attracted the world’s top players.

Among the prominent winners were Max Euwe, Bent Larsen, Tigran Petrosian, Paul Keres, Efim Geller, Lajos Portisch, Boris Spassky, Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Viktor Korchnoi, Jan Timman, Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov.

In 2001, nine of the top ten players in the world participated.

Anand is the only player to have won five titles of the Hoogovens/Corus chess tournament in its long history, a’though three of these were shared wins.         

TheIndian champion also holds the record of most consecutive games played at this tournament without a loss (70 - from 1998-2004).

Euwe, Portisch and Korchnoi won Corus four times each.