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The prestigious yearly Corus tournament, formerly called Hoogovens, is taking place in three Grandmaster Groups. There are also a number of amateur groups being staged at the same time. The three Grandmaster tournaments have 14 players each and are round robins (each competitor plays against every other). Games start at 1:30 p.m.
The only decided game was Loek van Wely against Teimour Radjabov. The Dutch grandmaster played his specialty in the classical King's Indian, a line he had used to knock Radjabov out of the World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk just a year ago. This time the 19-year-old Azerbaijani took sweet revenge.
Radjabov took revenge for his loss to van Wely in the 2005 World Cup
Van Wely,L (2683) - Radjabov,T (2729) [E97]
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (1), 13.01.2007
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5
Ne7 9.b4 Nh5 10.Re1 f5 11.Ng5 Nf6 12.f3 Kh8 13.Ne6 Bxe6 14.dxe6 Nh5.
At the World Cup a year ago in Khanty Mansiysk van Wely played 14...fxe4 15.fxe4
Nc6 16.Nd5 Nxe4 17.Bf3 Nf6 18.b5 Nxd5 19.bxc6 Nb6 20.cxb7 Rb8 21.c5 e4 22.Rxe4
dxc5 23.Qxd8 Rfxd8 24.Bg5 Re8 25.Rd1 Bd4+ 26.Rexd4 cxd4 27.e7 h6 28.Bf6+ Kg8
29.Rxd4 Kf7 30.Rd8 Nd7 31.Bh4 g5 32.Rxd7 Ke6 33.Bg4+ Kf6 34.Be1 Rxb7 35.Bc3+
Kg6 36.Bf3 Rb1+ 37.Kf2 Rc1 38.Rxc7 Kf5 39.Bh5 Rc2+ 40.Kf3 1-0 Van Wely,L (2648)-Radjabov,T
(2704)/Khanty Mansiysk 2005. This time Radjabov turns the tables. 15.g3
Bf6 16.c5 f4 17.g4 Ng7 18.Bc4 Nc6 19.cxd6 cxd6 20.Ne2 Rc8 21.Bd5 Nxb4 22.Rb1
Nc2 23.Rf1 b6 24.Rb2 Ne3 25.Bxe3 fxe3 26.Qb3 Bg5 27.Nc3 Rc5 28.Na4 Rc7 29.Nc3
Qc8 30.Nb5 Rc1 31.Rb1 Rxf1+ 32.Rxf1 Qc5 33.Kg2 Rc8 34.Re1 a6 35.Na3 Qd4 36.Re2
Rc3 37.Qb2 h5 38.h3.
Ever seen a pawn chain like the one on the e-file? Now Radjabov finishes off his opponent: 38...Qd1 39.Bb3 Rxb3! 40.axb3 Nxe6 0-1. White is helpless against the threat of 41...Nf4+ with mate to follow.
Van Wely lost in a line where he is actually the expert
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A rising Indian star is 13-year-old Parimarjan Negi, who is playing in the C Group and who definitely bears watching. He underlined this with an emphatic first-round victory which was great fun to watch.
Parimarjan with his trainer Elisbar Ubilava
Negi,P (2538) - Spoelman,W (2414) [C78]
Corus C Wijk aan Zee NED (1), 13.01.2007
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 b5 6.Bb3 Bb7 7.Re1 Bc5 8.c3
0-0 9.d4 Bb6 10.Be3 exd4 11.cxd4 Na5 12.Bg5 Nxb3 13.Qxb3 (nomally people
tend to take back with the a-pawn) 13...h6 14.Bh4N Setting
the stage for some tactical fireworks.
14...g5 15.Nxg5 Nxe4 (15...hxg5 16.Bxg5 followed by 17.e5 is good for White) 16.Rxe4! Bxe4 17.Qg3 hxg5 18.Bxg5 Qe8 19.Bf6+ Bg6 20.Nc3 Qe6 21.Qh4 Bh7 22.Qg5+ Bg6
23.Nd5 Bxd4 24.Bxd4 c5 25.Nf6+ Kg7 26.Ne8+ Kg8 27.Qh6 and it is mate in two. 1-0.
The other young super-talent who bears watching in Wijk is Hou Yifan who is playing in the C Group. She is just 12 years old and weighs in at 2509 Elo points. In the above picture we see her with trainer Yu Shaoteng (left) and GM Bu Xiangzhi, once the youngest grandmaster in the world, who is playing in the B Group. Both Bu and Hou won their first round games in fine style.
All pictures by courtesy of ChessVista
Start of round one, very nicely captioned – 5'38"
Postmortem Aronian-Navara (Russian) – 0'56"
Postmortem Shirov-Svidler (Russian) – 0'56"
Chessvibes also has a lot of captioned pictures of the players at the start of round one.
