Corus Chess Tournament 2008 Preview

The Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk Ann Zee starts tomorrow and the field is extremely strong this year. There are a few players who I’d love to see in the tournament who are absent this year, but it’s tough to fit everyone into a single tournament. The players who I was hoping to see play this year, but who are missing include Morozevich, Kamsky, and Shirov. All 3 of these players have been on a roll lately, but maybe the World Cup took too much out of Kamsky and Shirov, who knows. Here is the complete list of the Corus A group:

GM Viswanathan Anand IND 2799
GM Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2799
GM Veselin Topalov BUL 2780
GM Shakhryar Mamedyarov AZE 2760
GM Peter Leko HUN 2753
GM Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2751
GM Levon Aronian ARM 2739
GM Boris Gelfand ISR 2737
GM Teymour Radjabov AZE 2735
GM Magnus Carlsen NOR 2733
GM Michael Adams ENG 2726
GM Judit Polgar HUN 2707
GM Pavel Eljanov UKR 2692
GM Loek van Wely NED 2681

It’s amazing how many strong GMs there are nowadays. The latest FIDE list includes 24 players over 2700! It makes you wonder if there has been some rating inflation over the past 5 years or so, or is it just easier to get to the 2700+ level? I have a theory that the ever increasing strength of computers makes it easier for a player to improve on his own. Secrets that were only known to a select few are now readily available to any player who uses a computer. You can basically analyze opening lines out to the very end, and even if you aren’t that talented at chess you can reach a very high level just memorizing stuff.

Mark Dvoretsky wrote a whole column on chesscafe.com where he says that chess is just becoming a game of memorization and home preparation. The top GMs tend to play the openings that are in fashion, and analyze them to the very end. Then when it’s clear there are no improvements left in that specific line, the GMs move on to something else. Chess is becoming a scorched earth game, and eventually there will be absolutely no room left for innovation.

Many people have advocated Fischer Random/Chess 960 as a possible solution to this problem, but Dvortesky seems to be firmly against it. Instead he suggests that the game starts with a few pawn moves already played, for instance if d3 and b6 were thrown in, it would change all the opening theory. I’m not quite sure I like this approach better than Chess 960, but I will give him credit for being original.

Oh and lastly, I want to wish US Women’s Champion, Irina Krush, good luck in the Corus C Group. I will be watching her games closely as I’m very interested to see how she’ll fare in a tournament of this strength.. Daily reports of the Corus Games will be coming, so stay tuned!