The 2008 Corus line up has been announced:
GM Viswanathan Anand 1969 2801 1
GM Vassily Ivanchuk 1969 2787 2
GM Vladimir Kramnik 1975 2785 3
GM Veselin Topalov 1975 2769 4
GM Peter Leko 1979 2755 5
GM Shakhryar Mamedyarov 1985 2752 7
GM Teymour Radjabov 1987 2742 8
GM Levon Aronian 1982 2741 9
GM Boris Gelfand 1968 2736 11
GM Michael Adams 1971 2729 13
GM Magnus Carlsen 1990 2714 17
GM Judit Polgar 1976 2708 20
GM Pavel Eljanov 1983 2681 30
GM Loek van Wely 1972 2680 32
Average rating: 2741
Category: 20
The 70th Corus Chess Tournament is being held from January 11 to January 27 2008. The official website is http://www.coruschess.com/.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Wow, that is one heck of a line up!
Super line up. Better than Mexico. Now lets see who the champ is.
Looks like Gelfand earned an invite with his performance in Mexico.
Great to see Magnus and Judit.
Let the games begin. I am excited.
Who is missing????
06 Moro
10 Shirov
12 Svidler
14 Kamsky
15 Alekseev
16 Grischuk
etc
I wish Kamsky was playing.
IT would have been even stronger with Shirov and Moro instead of Jude and Van Wely
In my opinion, the only one I think really missing from the list above is Kamsky, and maybe Moro & Shirov for the fan (but they couldn’t really fight at the top here), Kamsky has the ability to surprise since has been in the real top before he retired, and has that kind of quality.
I certainly don’t miss Svidler here, we don’t need another drawing streak champ…
Susan, I see only Van Wely. Where is Tiviakov? I thought both always had automatic entry into Corus.
Also, is this average rating (2741) higher than the average at the recent World Championship?
No, the World Championship was over 2750.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.ChessDiscussion.com
Yes, the average rating in Mexico was higher, but only because the field was smaller. Here, all of the top 5 are playing and 8 of the top 10. Mexico had nothing like that–missing Topalov, Ivanchuk, Radjabov, and Mamedyarov. And included among the small number of no-account, low-rated players? Carlsen and J. Polgar!
Now trade Kamsky and Morozevich for Leko and Eljanov and you’d have the ideal lineup of 14 (unless you could also include Kasparov, Fischer, Capablanca, Lasker, and Karpov their prime).
I wish Kamsky would have been playing but be it as it may, I have a feeling Chuky will win this event and surprise everybody except those who have seen his games all this past year!
Anand will won Corus 2008 with grace.He will slice the field like a knife through butter.
He is a genious.
don’t forget that Ivanchuk,Kramnik, and Topalov are genious too.
It is certainly going to be extremly hot in the next Corus tournament!
Kamsky is an unsporting, badly behaved brat. But then Topailov is only slightly better.And one can never trust him anymore. They say Kasparov is a great player but who really knows? After all, he retracted a move against Judith Polgar!! Anand is a truly great gentleman player. And the greatest ever is of course Bobby F !!! He may have had problems with FIDE etc but as far as I know,he never misbehaved at the table.And his Chess was absolutely exciting stuff!!