Corus facts and figures
As we're approaching the wonderful festival in that small Dutch coastal town, we're probably as excited as you are. Today some facts and figures about the oldest-but-one chess tournament in the world.The Corus Chess Tournament 2009 will be held from 16 January - 1 February 2009 in Wijk aan Zee. The tournament venue is the De Moriaan Community Centre (Dorpsduinen 4, 1949 EG Wijk aan Zee) and the nearby bar de Zon.Invitation tournaments The Corus Chess Tournament has three main tournaments. They are played according to the 'round robin' system, whereby each competitor plays in turn against every other during the tournament. All three Grandmaster groups have 14 players and start on January 17th. All rounds begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round on February 1st, which begins at 12.30 hours. There are rest days: on January 21st, 26th, and 29th.Amateur events There are four amateur events during the Corus Chess Tournament, that are open for all players: Weekend-three-round events (16-18 January), Weekday-three-round-events (19-21 January), Nine-round events (23 January - 1 February) and the Rapid Tournament (24-25 January). Special groups More than 10 special groups are playing their own CCT, especially in the first and second weekend of the tournament. A.o. journalists, members of the Dutch parliament and local politicians are invited by the organisation for these special groups. Schedule
(Click for bigger version)Statistics Viswanathan Anand has won most tournaments in Wijk aan Zee than anyone else: five. He's followed by Max Euwe, Viktor Kortchnoi and Lajos Portisch, who all won four editions. Most games were played by Donner (298!), then Jan Timman (260) and third is Hans Ree (258). The most succesful player was Arnold van den Hoek (the Dutchman scored 5.5 out of 7, a percentage of 78.57, in the year 1943). He's followed by Boris Spassky (11 out of 15 in 1967 - 73.33%), Lev Polugaevsky (19 out of 26 in 1966 and 1979 - 73.08%) and then Garry Kasparov (28.5 out of 39 in 1999, 2000 and 2001 - 73.08%). The most drawish player was Petar Trifunovic, who scored 14 out of 26 with a drawing percentage of 84.62%! He did win the 1962 event though. The tournament website has much more statistics available. Previous winnersHoogovens, Beverwijk1938 - Philip Bakker 1939 - Nicolaas Cortlever 1940 - Max Euwe 1941 - Arthur Wijnans 1942 - Max Euwe 1943 - Arnold van den Hoek 1944 - Theo van Scheltinga 1945 - no tournament 1946 - Alberic O'Kelly de Galway 1947 - Theo van Scheltinga 1948 - Lodewijk Prins 1949 - Savielly Tartakower 1950 - Jan Hein Donner 1951 - Herman Pilnik 1952 - Max Euwe 1953 - Nicolas Rossolimo 1954 - Hans Bouwmeester and Vasja Pirc 1955 - Bora Milic 1956 - Gideon Stahlberg 1957 - Aleksandar Matanovic 1958 - Max Euwe and Jan Hein Donner 1959 - Fri??rik ?ìlafsson 1960 - Bent Larsen and Tigran Petrosian 1961 - Bent Larsen and Borislav Ivkov 1962 - Petar Trifunovic 1963 - Jan Hein Donner 1964 - Paul Keres and Iivo Nei 1965 - Lajos Portisch and Efim Geller 1966 - Lev Polugaevsky 1967 - Boris SpasskyHoogovens, Wijk aan Zee 1968 - Viktor Korchnoi 1969 - Mikhail Botvinnik and Efim Geller 1970 - Mark Taimanov 1971 - Viktor Korchnoi 1972 - Lajos Portisch 1973 - Mikhail Tal 1974 - Walter Browne 1975 - Lajos Portisch 1976 - Ljubomir Ljubojevic and Fri??rik ?ìlafsson 1977 - Genna Sosonko and Efim Geller 1978 - Lajos Portisch 1979 - Lev Polugaevsky 1980 - Walter Browne and Yasser Seirawan 1981 - Genna Sosonko and Jan Timman 1982 - John Nunn and Yuri Balashov 1983 - Ulf Andersson 1984 - Alexander Beliavsky and Viktor Korchnoi 1985 - Jan Timman 1986 - Nigel Short 1987 - Nigel Short and Viktor Korchnoi 1988 - Anatoly Karpov 1989 - Viswanathan Anand, Predrag Nikolic, Zoltan Ribli and Gyula Sax 1990 - John Nunn 1991 - John Nunn 1992 - Boris Gelfand and Valery Salov 1993 - Anatoly Karpov 1994 - Predrag Nikolic 1995 - Alexey Dreev 1996 - Vassily Ivanchuk 1997 - Valery Salov 1998 - Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand 1999 - Garry Kasparov 2000 - Garry Kasparov 2001 - Garry KasparovCorus Chess Tournament, Wijk aan Zee2002 - Evgeny Bareev 2003 - Viswanathan Anand 2004 - Viswanathan Anand 2005 - P?©ter L?©k?? 2006 - Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand 2007 - Levon Aronian, Teimour Radjabov and Veselin Topalov 2008 - Levon Aronian and Magnus CarlsenBest games Both of the following games have been called the "Pearl of Wijk aan Zee" and will never bore us to replay once again:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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