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This is taking place from December 29th, 2007, to January 6th, 2008. The standings after three rounds is as follows:
The 83rd Hastings International Congress is taking place from December 28th, 2007, to January 6th, 2008. It consists of a ten-round Swiss and an open FIDE Rated tournament. We will be reporting on Hastings every few days.
The Second ACP World Rapid Cup, organised by the Pivdenny Bank, will take place in Odessa, Ukraine, from January 4th to 7th, 2008.
The venue is the Londonskaya Hotel in the heart of the city. It was opened 160 years ago and offers spectacular views of the Black Sea and famous Potyomkin Stairs. The Londonskaya is regarded as one of Odessa’s finest hotels, with opulence, elegance and old world charm.
Dmitry Jakovenko, Vassily Ivanchuk, Teimour Radjabov, Evgeny Najer, Sergey Karjakin, Peter Svidler, Alexander Shabalov, Pavel Eljanov, Ernesto Inarkiev, Boris Savchenko, Alexei Shirov, Boris Gelfand and Yuri Drozdovsky
| No. | Player | nat. | born | rating |
| 1 | Svidler, Peter | RUS | 1976 | 2763 |
| 2 | Shirov, Alexei | ESP | 1972 | 2755 |
| 3 | Ivanchuk, Vassily | UKR | 1969 | 2751 |
| 4 | Gelfand, Boris | ISR | 1968 | 2737 |
| 5 | Radjabov, Teimour | AZE | 1987 | 2735 |
| 6 | Karjakin, Sergey | UKR | 1990 | 2732 |
| 7 | Jakovenko, Dmitry | RUS | 1983 | 2720 |
| 8 | Grischuk, Alexander | RUS | 1983 | 2711 |
| 9 | Polgar, Judit | HUN | 1976 | 2707 |
| 10 | Eljanov, Pavel | UKR | 1983 | 2692 |
| 11 | Inarkiev, Ernesto | RUS | 1985 | 2681 |
| 12 | Karpov, Anatoly | RUS | 1951 | 2655 |
The other players who have qualified are Evgeny Najer, Alexander Shabalov, Boris Savchenko and Yuri Drozdovsky. The prize fund of the tournament is US $136,000.
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The Corus Chess Tournament 2008 will have all the big guns: Anand, Kramnik, Topalov and Ivanchuk. It will be held from 11-27 January 2008 in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. The tournament venue is the De Moriaan Community Centre (Dorpsduinen 4, 1949 EG Wijk aan Zee) and the nearby bar de Zon. The participants have just been announced and it is billed as one of the world's strongest chess tournaments (category 20).
| No. | Player | nat. | born | rating | rank |
| 1 | GM Viswanathan Anand | IND | 1969 | 2801 | 1 |
| 2 | GM Vassily Ivanchuk | UKR | 1969 | 2787 | 2 |
| 3 | GM Vladimir Kramnik | RUS | 1975 | 2785 | 3 |
| 4 | GM Veselin Topalov | BUL | 1975 | 2769 | 4 |
| 5 | GM Peter Leko | HUN | 1979 | 2755 | 5 |
| 6 | GM Shakhryar Mamedyarov | AZE | 1985 | 2752 | 7 |
| 7 | GM Teymour Radjabov | AZE | 1987 | 2742 | 8 |
| 8 | GM Levon Aronian | ARM | 1982 | 2741 | 9 |
| 9 | GM Boris Gelfand | ISR | 1968 | 2736 | 11 |
| 10 | GM Michael Adams | ENG | 1971 | 2729 | 13 |
| 11 | GM Magnus Carlsen | NOR | 1990 | 2714 | 17 |
| 12 | GM Judit Polgar | HUN | 1976 | 2708 | 20 |
| 13 | GM Pavel Eljanov | UKR | 1983 | 2681 | 30 |
| 14 | GM Loek van Wely | NED | 1972 | 2680 | 32 |
The average rating is 2741, the category is 20. The Corus Chess Tournament has two other GM tournaments:
Participants Grandmaster Group B
Average rating: 2617 – Category : 15 |
Participants Grandmaster Group C
Average rating: 2497 – Category : 10 |
All three Grandmaster groups have 14 players and are round robins, starting on January 12th. All rounds begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round on January 27th, which begins at 12.30 hours (Grandmaster group C starts at 11.30 hours in the last round). There are rest days: on January 16th, 21st, and 24th.
There are also four amateur events during the Corus Chess Tournament, open to all players: Weekend-three-round events (11-13 January), Weekday-three-round-events (14-16 January), Nine-round events (18-27 January) and the Rapid Tournament (19-20 January).
Wijk aan Zee is a small town on the coast of the North Sea, a popular tourist destination, especially in the Summer, when its sand beaches are beautiful and idyllic. In Winter, on the other hand, Wijk can be brutal. Freezing temperatures paired with a driving, icy wind, hardly make it a destination for the faint-hearted.
We are planning to spend a few days in Wijk for the 2008 tournament. In order to prepare we took a test vacation between Christmas and New Year to a very similar German town to the north of Wijk. Above you see your intrepid reporter (Fred Friedel) testing his Winter Chess Tournament gear. The anorak is a high-tech multi-layered affair which keeps all bad things out (wind, rain, ice, liquid ammonia) while allowing good things to pass (fresh air in, sweat out). The boots and gloves are heavily padded. Scott would have survived with this kind of equipment. We are confident that we will make it to Wijk and back safely.
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The 25th Morelia-Linares chess tournament will once again be split between two cities (actually two continents). It is a double round robin with eight players. The first half takes place in Morelia, Mexico, from February 15 to 23; the second half is in Linares, Spain, and goes from February 28 to March 7.
The eight participants are given in the table below. Actually we copied the table from Wijk aan Zee, deleted a few names and added one (Alexei Shirov), to get the Morelia-Linares list. Goes to show that many of these top tournaments have the same players – in both we miss only Vladimir Kramnik and Alexander Morozevich.
| No. | Player | nat. | born | rating | rank |
| 1 | GM Viswanathan Anand | IND | 1969 | 2801 | 1 |
| 2 | GM Vassily Ivanchuk | UKR | 1969 | 2787 | 2 |
| 3 | GM Veselin Topalov | BUL | 1975 | 2769 | 4 |
| 5 | GM Peter Leko | HUN | 1979 | 2755 | 5 |
| 7 | GM Teymour Radjabov | AZE | 1987 | 2742 | 8 |
| 8 | GM Levon Aronian | ARM | 1982 | 2741 | 9 |
| 9 | GM Alexei Shirov | ESP | 1972 | 2739 | 10 |
| 11 | GM Magnus Carlsen | NOR | 1990 | 2714 | 17 |
We are planning to go to Morelia as well. Why? Well, apart from the great chess players and the hopefully great chess, we love this Mexican town, which is warm and sunny, with colonial style buildings, lots of friendly people, a relaxed atmosphere, and did we mention: warm and sunny?
The main street of Morelia, with the Mexican sun shining cheerfully
This is the place we return to: northern Germany, covered with snow
Your intrepid reporter still not out of his Morelia gear last year
