Corus Chess Becomes Tata Steel Chess

In January 2007 the Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus was taken over by the Indian company, Tata Steel for around 12 billion dollars.

While proponents of the take-over promoted the synergies between the two steel giants, chess fans were more concerned about the fate of the Corus chess tournament, held every year in Wijk Aan Zee in the Netherlands.

Fortunately the tournament survived the expensive corporate action, but it is now, finally, changing its name to Tata Steel Chess.

The format of the event will reassuringly remain unchanged, with the now familiar A, B and C tournaments providing a real feast of chess in the Dutch seaside town during the cold winter.

The 2011 edition will run from 14-30 January and so far the confirmed players for the A group are world champion Vishy Anand, world #1 ranked Magnus Carlsen, and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.

If they can just add Veselin Topalov and Lev Aronian, we will have the top 5 players in the same event...we can but dream.  Who would YOU like to see in Wijk?

The full line-up should be announced after the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, which starts in a week's time and finishes on 4 October.

For now, the official website address remains www.coruschess.com