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Anand continued his winning edge against Kramnik by beating him at Wijk aan Zee in the 12th round. Ironically, Kramnik had been displaying sparkling form and had even beaten the current world no. 1, Carlsen. Anand thus beat 2 of the 3 top players at the ongoing tournament. See full game: Key moments: 18 ... Bf8 Not losing, but Kramnik could probably just continue with 18. ... Bf5 19 Qe5 Qxe5 20. Nxe5 Bd6 and so on. A draw is not bad with the Petroff against the world champ. 27 .. Nb3? Again, Bf5 or Bc5 will do just fine. 34 .. Qg6? Loses immediately at these levels. Probably plain time pressure. One winning line for example is 35 Qxg6 hxg6 36. Bg4 Rxc4 37 Nf7 Kg8 38 Be6 Anand played the immediate Bg4, probably laying a trap into which Kramnik walked in playing Rxc4. The win was demonstrated with usual technique by Anand.

Viswanathan Anand, Carlsen, and Kramnik are Chesshousehold names. But how many of the others invited to this years Corus Chess tournament do we know? We present these talented but relatively lesser known players in a different, interesting way. Be aware that most of them are super stars in their own country/region. Pentala Harikrishna Look at this www.chessmetrics.com list. 1 Kramnik, Vladimir 2541 2 Bu Xiangzhi 2520 3 Kundin, Alexander 2494 4 Radjabov, Teimour 2474 5 Leko, Peter 2466 6 Kamsky, Gata 2462 7 Polgar, Judit 2458 8 Ponomariov, Ruslan 2452 9 Bacrot, Etienne 2432 10 Harikrishna, Pentala 2381 According to Jeff Sonas, this is the list of the highest ratings of 14 year olds, ever! Sure, No. 3 Kundin is not popular, but No. 10 is not a bad ranking to have, especially if you go down the list and find Jakovenko, Aronian, Naiditsch, Short, Kasimdzhanov, and last but not the least Topalov at Nos 12, 13, 17, 30, 44 and 50! i warned you No. 10 is not bad! (Probably No. 11 now...

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...

Results of round 7 Aronian, Levon - Radjabov, Teimour 1-0 King's Indian Defence Ivanchuk, Vassily - Kramnik, Vladimir ½-½ Petroff's Defence Topalov, Veselin - Carlsen, Magnus ½-½ Ruy Lopez Closed Adams, Michael - Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar ½-½ Ruy Lopez Modern Steinitz Polgar, Judit - Anand, Viswanathan 0-1 Sicilian Najdorf Variation Gelfand, Boris - Lékó, Peter ½-½ Catalan Eljanov, Pavel - Van Wely, Loek * Slav Defence (Game is still going on) Standings after Round 7 Magnus Carlsen - 5 Vladimir Kramnik - 4.5 Levon Aronian - 4.5

Come on in. Everyday we will put up live analysis and post-mortem ! Here is the list of players that we consider masters at winning and masters at drawing. Its interesting to see some players who belong to these groups by character :) Winning masters: 1. Garry Kasparov (73.08%) 2. Paul Keres (71.67%) 3. Max Euwe (71.43) 4. Lajos Portisch (66.14%) 5. Efim Geller (66.07%) Drawing masters: 1. Gyula Sax (76.32%) 2. Peter Leko (75.96%) 3. Andras Adorjan (72.09%) 4. Gennadi Sosonko (71.52%) 5. Ulf Andersson (67.86%)

This is my favorite list of players to watch at this year's Corus Chess tournament. What's yours, any suggestions ? I'll soon be adding the reasons to the players names. GM Group A Anand vs Kramnik - a preview of the titanic struggle later in the year ! Magnus Carlsen - can he start this year like he ended the last one ? Veselin Topalov - a bit forgotten last year. This is his chance, right ? GM Group B Ivan Cheparinov - How about Topalov winning the A Group and Cheparinov the B ? Nigel Short - His first real chance to start climbing up. Come on, Short. Koneru Humpy - Her chance to make an impression in an elite men's tournament. Hou Yifan - Can she hold her own against such a strong field ? Stellwagen (for locals) - Time to move up and take the place of veterans in Holland. GM Group C Fabiano Caruana - Top favorite to win the C and try for the B next year. Parimarjan Negi - Other prodigies have left you behind. Wake up, you can do it ! John van der Wiel - Show the kids...

There are four leaders now at the top at the Reggio Emilia chess tournament 2007 - 2008. Harikrishna beat everybody's favorite whipping boy in this tournament, Navara. One suspects Navara is a bit lacking in confidence in this tournament. Hope he soon starts fighting back as he is capable of. Harikrisha's comeback after his first round loss to Almasi is already impressive. It bodes well for him for the near future where he will play in the GM Group B section of the Corus Chess Championship at Wijk aan Zee, which starts after Reggio Emilia. Tiviakov beat another favorite whipping boy, Godena while Ni Hua held Korchnoi to a draw. Godena obviously walked into Tiviakov's preparation in a French Defence game. He was slowly ground to his defeat. Standings after Round 4: Zoltan Almasi, Vugar Gashimov, Konstantin Landa, P Harikrishna - 2.5 Ni Hua, Mihail Marin, Sergei Tiviakov, Godena, David Navara - 2

The 2008 Corus Chess Tournament at Wijk and Zee - A Preview The Category 20 chess tournament with average ELO 2741 will be held as usual at Wijk aan Zee from 11 to 27 January 2008. The venue will be the De Moriaan Community Centre and the Bar de Zon. The tournament will be held in different groups. All eyes will be on the premier GM A Group. But players in the GM Group B and GM Group C are no pushovers. In fact, any other city would be proud to host a tournament with players as strong as the ones in GM Group C. As an example, Magnus Carlsen first earned real publicity with his amazing show as a 13 year old kid at Wijk aan Zee. The GM Group A has almost all the top ranked players of the world. This tournament is the first of the Grand Slam events of chess. In addition to the GM Group sections, there is a Honorary tournament running in parallel. Victor Korchnoi, Jan Timman, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, and Lajos Portisch play in this section. Amazingly even this is a category 13 tournament.