Anand meets Karjakin in Corus Chess first round

WIJK AAN ZEE - Five-time champion Viswanathan Anand will take on young Sergey Karjakin in the first round of the 72nd Corus Grandmasters chess tournament.

A record number of five Indian players feature in this year’s tournament at the Dutch seaside town of Wijk Aan Zee.

All five Indians in the three Groups will open their first round with black pieces.

In Group B, Pentala Harikrishna will meet Anish Giri, whose father is Nepali and mother Russian, while Parimarjan Negi takes on D. Howell.

In Group C, Sowmya Swaminathan faces Robby Robinson while Abhijeet Gupta meets R. Swinkels.

While Anand, the reigning World Champion, and a five-time winner here, has been a regular feature in the highest category A Group, India has two participants - Harikrishna and Negi - in B and two others - Abhijeet Gupta and Sowmya Swaminathan - in the C category.

Apart from hosts, the Netherlands, no other country has more than three participants in all three categories put together while India has five.

The Corus Grandmasters Chess tournament is considered one of the strongest and biggest classical chess events in the world. It will be held from Jan 15-31 at the traditional De Moriaan Community Centre.

The Corus Chess tournament has three main segments. They are played according to the ’round robin’ system, whereby each competitor plays in turn against every other during the tournament. All three Grandmaster groups have 14 players and start January 16 after a formal opening a day earlier.

All rounds begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round January 31, which begins at 12.30 hours. The rest days are January 20, 25, and 28.

First round pairings: Group A: Caruana, Fabiano - Ivanchuk, Vassily; Dominguez Perez, Leinier - Kramnik, Vladimir; Karjakin, Sergey - Anand, Viswanathan; Leko, Peter - Shirov, Alexei; Smeets, Jan - Nakamura, Hikaru; Tiviakov, Sergei - Carlsen, Magnus; Van Wely, Loek - Short, Nigel.