Wijk Aan Zee: Five-time
champion and world number three Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand
will spearhead a five-strong Indian challenge at the
prestigious Corus Chess Tournament starting here tomorrow.
Anand, a reigning world champion, is the lone Indian in
elite Group A of the event, which he has won thrice jointly
and twice individually.
The rest of the Indian team comprises of P Harikrishna
and Parimarjan Negi in Group B and Abhijeet Gupta and Woman
Grandmaster Soumya Swaminathan in Group C.
Barring world number two Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, who
will square off against Anand in a World Championship in April
this year, all the top players will compete in the Corus
event.
That includes world number one Norwegian Magnus Carlsen
and other top performers like Russian Vladimir Kramnik and
Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in Group A.
Anand first won the title in 1989 jointly with Predrag
Nikolic, Zoltan Ribli and Gyula Sax. He had to wait for nine
years to lift his second title and this time he shared it with
Kramnik.
The individual wins for the Indian came in 2003 and 2004
before he shared it with Topalov in 2006.
To their credit, Harikrishna, Abhijeet and Sowmya have
won world junior titles, while Negi is the youngest ever
Indian to become a Grandmaster.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, January 10, 2010, 19:46