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Tata Steel Chess Tournament

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The Corus chess tournament takes place every year, usually in January, in a small town called Wijk aan Zee, part of the larger Beverwijk in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. It was called the Hoogovens tournament until 1999 after which the Dutch steel and aluminium producer Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Steel to form the Corus Group on 6 October 1999. From 1938 to 1967, the tournament took place in Beverwijk. After the purchase of Corus by Tata Steel, the future sponsorship of the tournament remains in question.

While it is true that very strong chess players compete in the prestigious tournament, regular club players are welcome to play as well. The top 'A' section pits 14 of the world's best against each other in a round-robin tournament. Since 1938, there has been a long list of famous winners, including: 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 fact, of the "Classical" world chess champions since World War II, only the names of Vassily Smyslov and Bobby Fischer are missing. In 2001, nine of the top ten players in the world participated.

Viswanathan Anand is the only player to have won five titles of the Hoogovens/Corus chess tournament in its long history, though three of these were shared wins. Anand also holds the record of most consecutive games played at this tournament without a loss (70 — from 1998–2004). Max Euwe, Lajos Portisch and Viktor Korchnoi won Corus four times each.

Tournament History

Hoogovens Beverwijk

The early tournaments were very small, starting with groups of four in 1938, and entry restricted to Dutch players. The first five tournaments continued this way, with the contest held annually early in January. In 1943 and 1944 the tournament field was doubled in size to eight players. No tournament was held in 1945 due to World War II. The first international tournament was held in 1946. The main tournament field was expanded to ten, with invitations to Alberic O'Kelly de Galway (Belgium) and Gösta Stoltz (Sweden) along with a Dutch contingent of eight. The tournament field remained at ten until 1953 when it was increased to twelve, and an international women's tournament was also held. In 1954 the tournament field was returned to ten players, but the strength of the competitions increased. The field was greatly enlarged to 18 in 1963, and although reduced to 16 in 1964 the event had become the strongest international chess tournament in the world (Golombek 1977, p. 143).

The 1946 tournament was one of the first European international chess tournaments after World War II. Food shortages were still a problem in Europe, so the post-tournament banquet featured pea soup, inexpensive fare of the common people. In subsequent years pea soup has been served as the first course of the concluding banquet, a tradition continued when the tournament was moved from Beverwijk to Wijk aan Zee (Damsky & Sugden 2005, p. 164).

Winners of the top group:[1]

Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee

The tournament was moved to the Dutch seaside town Wijk aan Zee in 1968. In this period chess players often called the tournament Wijk aan Zee. Winners of the Grandmaster A group since 1968 have been:

Corus tournament

Complete Results

1999

Crosstable from TWIC 223:

Wijk aan Zee (Netherlands), i 1999 cat. XVIII (2678)
Player Rating 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Total
1  Gary Kasparov (RUS) g 2812 * = = 0 1 1 = = 1 1 1 1 1 1 10.0 2878
2  Viswanathan Anand (IND) g 2781 = * = = 1 = 1 = = 1 1 1 = 1 9.5 2844
3  Vladimir Kramnik (RUS) g 2751 = = * = = 1 1 = = = = = 1 = 8.0 2758
4  Ivan Sokolov (BIH) g 2624 1 = = * = 0 = 0 = = = 1 1 = 7.0 2710
5  Jeroen Piket (NED) g 2619 0 0 = = * = 1 1 = 1 = = = = 7.0 2711
6  Alexei Shirov (ESP) g 2726 0 = 0 1 = * = = = = = = 1 1 7.0 2702
7  Jan Timman (NED) g 2670 = 0 0 = 0 = * 1 = 0 1 1 1 1 7.0 2707
8  Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR) g 2714 = = = 1 0 = 0 * = = = = = 1 6.5 2674
9  Peter Svidler (RUS) g 2713 0 = = = = = = = * = 1 = = = 6.5 2674
10  Veselin Topalov (BUL) g 2700 0 0 = = 0 = 1 = = * = 1 0 1 6.0 2646
11  Rustam Kasimdzhanov (UZB) g 2606 0 0 = = = = 0 = 0 = * 1 = = 5.0 2596
12  Loek van Wely (NED) g 2632 0 0 = 0 = = 0 = = 0 0 * 1 1 4.5 2571
13  Alex Yermolinsky (USA) g 2597 0 = 0 0 = 0 0 = = 1 = 0 * = 4.0 2542
14  Dimitri Reinderman (NED) g 2541 0 0 = = = 0 0 0 = 0 = 0 = * 3.0 2477

2007

In 2007, the finals positions were:[1]

Wijk aan Zee (Netherlands), 13-28 i 2007 cat. XIX (2718)
Player Rating 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Total
1  Levon Aronian (ARM) g 2744 * = 1 = = = = 1 1 = 1 = = = 8.5 2825
2  Veselin Topalov (BUL) g 2783 = * = = 1 0 = = 1 = = 1 1 1 8.5 2822
3  Teimour Radjabov (AZE) g 2729 0 = * = = = 1 = = 1 1 1 = 1 8.5 2827
4  Vladimir Kramnik (RUS) g 2766 = = = * 1 = = = = = = 1 = 1 8.0 2801
5  Viswanathan Anand (IND) g 2779 = 0 = 0 * 1 = 1 = 1 = 1 = = 7.5 2770
6  Peter Svidler (RUS) g 2728 = 1 = = 0 * = 0 = 1 1 0 1 = 7.0 2746
7  David Navara (CZE) g 2719 = = 0 = = = * 0 1 = = 1 1 0 6.5 2717
8  Sergey Karjakin (UKR) g 2678 0 = = = 0 1 1 * 0 = = = = 1 6.5 2721
9  Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR) g 2723 0 0 = = = = 0 1 * = = = 1 = 6.0 2688
10  Alexander Motylev (RUS) g 2647 = = 0 = 0 0 = = = * = = = = 5.0 2636
11  Sergei Tiviakov (NED) g 2667 0 = 0 = = 0 = = = = * = = = 5.0 2634
12  Loek van Wely (NED) g 2683 = 0 0 0 0 1 0 = = = = * = 1 5.0 2633
13  Magnus Carlsen (NOR) g 2690 = 0 = = = 0 0 = 0 = = = * = 4.5 2610
14  Alexei Shirov (ESP) g 2715 = 0 0 0 = = 1 0 = = = 0 = * 4.5 2608

2008 tournament

Main article: 2008 Corus Chess Tournament

The 2008 Corus Chess Tournament took place in the De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee. The format of each of the three Grandmaster groups remained a 14 player single round robin. The participants in group A included eight of the world's top ten players (country, October 2007 rating and rank in brackets): Viswanathan Anand (India, 2801, 1), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2787, 2), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2785, 3), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria, 2769, 4), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2755, 5=), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 2752, 7), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan, 2742, 8) and Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2741, 9). The remaining players are Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2736, 11), Michael Adams (England, 2729, 13), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2714, 16=), Judit Polgar (Hungary, 2708, 20), Pavel Eljanov (Ukraine, 2691, 26) and Loek van Wely (Netherlands, 2679, 31). The average rating of 2742 made it a Category 20 tournament. The only top ten players not participating were Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2755, 5=) and Alexei Shirov (Spain, 2739, 10).

The tournament was won by Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen (both scoring 8 out of 13).

Grandmaster group B was won by Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia with 9.5 points, and group C by Italy's Fabiano Caruana with 10, two points ahead of his nearest rival. The Honorary group, a new category consisting of four former A group champions playing a double round robin, was won by Ljubomir Ljubojevic with 4 points out of 6, ahead of Jan Timman, Viktor Korchnoi and Lajos Portisch.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.coruschess.com/tournament.php
  • Damsky, Yakov; Sugden, John (2005), The Batsford Book of Chess Records, Batsford, p. 164, ISBN 0-7134-8946-4
  • Golombek, Harry (1977), "Hoogoven Chess Tournament", Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, Batsford, p. 143, ISBN 0-517-53146-1
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