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The Live Chess Rankings for the last week of January 1 Topalov 2809 2 Anand 2791 3 Carlsen 2767 4 Radjabov 2765 5 Aronian 2760 6 Kramnik 2759 7 Jakovenko 2753 8 Leko 2751 9 Ivanchuk 2747 10 Morozevich 2746

Topalov and Kamsky have played each other 8 times and Topalov has totally dominated Kamsky so far. The score is +4 =4 in favor of Topalov. The score does not give a perfect picture of what will happen in their February match. Kamsky is known for his steely determination. Examples of this are his legendary wins over Anand before he retired in the last millenium and his shocking win in the World Cup. Here's a sample win by Topalov in one of their earliest encounters:

Live Chess Rankings - January 2009 Week 3 1 Topalov 2809 2 Anand 2791 3 Carlsen 2764 4 Radjabov 2762 5 Kramnik 2759 6 Aronian 2756 7 Jakovenko 2753 8 Ivanchuk 2751 8 Leko 2751 10 Morozevich 2748

The third round of the Corus Wijk Aan Zee tournament produced two significant results. The game between Radjabov and Ivanchuk was an error-filled one. Ivanchuk enjoyed the advantage almost throughout the game and pushed Radjabov to the wall with extreme pawn pushes and had most of Radjabov's pieces too in corners. In the end, Ivanchuk blundered away his Queen (which should anyway have been only a bishop). A miserable game for Ivanchuk and not a pretty sight at this level. The other decisive game was played between the solid Kamsky and the shaky (so far) top seed of this tournament, Morozevich. Kamsky squeezed the juice out of a normal middle game to beat Moro in just 34 moves.

The match to decide who will face Vishy Anand will be played between Topalov and Kamsky at Sofia, Bulgaria. It will be held between February 16-28 and will be an 8 game affair. The winner has a great chance to become the next World Champion, provided Vishy loses. While Kamsky won the right to the Challenger match by winning the World Cup, Topalov got the opportunity since he was denied a Toiletgate rematch against Kramnik. Although Kamsky tried hard to get the match to the US and later to the Ukraine, he finally had to agree to play in Bulgaria, since he could not get the funds to stage the match at Ukraine. Danailov managed to get the match to his favorite location. We feel that Topalov is the firm favorite, but Kamsky is a cool customer and is especially tough even when under intense pressure. Lets hope he pulls out some old tricks to try and outclass Topalov

The first round of the Corus Chess 2009 edition at Wijk aan Zee started with two upsets. Karjakin beat Morozevich and low ranked Smeets beat Ivanchuk. Radjabov held Carlsen to a draw with the black pieces in a nerve wracking game. In other significant games, Kasimdzhanov beat Yifan in a Group B game which the Chinese girl should have easily held. To her credit, she rejected a draw early in the game by playing on and not repeating moves. Results of Round 1 Group A D. Stellwagen - S. Movsesian ½-½ M. Carlsen - T. Radjabov ½-½ L. Aronian - W. Yue ½-½ V. Ivanchuk - J. Smeets 0-1 S. Karjakin - A. Morozevich 1-0 L. Van Wely - L. Dominguez (Game in Progress) G. Kamsky - M. Adams ½-½ Ivanchuk vs Smeets 0-1 Karjakin vs Morozevich 1-0 Carlsen vs Radjabov (Draw) Results of Round 1 Group B H. Yifan - R. Kasimdzhanov 0-1 K. Sasikiran - E. l'Ami ½-½ D. Reinderman - F. Vallejo Pons 0-1 N. Short - J. Werle ½-½ A. Volokitin - F. Caruana ½-½ H. Mecking - Z. Efimenko 0-1 A. Motylev - D. Navara 0-1 R

The top live chess rankings remain largely the same. Ni Hua has broken into the Top 20 after his stellar performance at Reggio Emilia, displacing the other recent stellar performer, Sasikiran (who did it at Pamplona) 01 Topalov 2809 02 Anand 2791 03 Morozevich 2771 04 Carlsen 2771 05 Ivanchuk 2763 06 Radjabov 2761 07 Kramnik 2759 08 Aronian 2754 09 Jakovenko 2753 10 Leko 2751