Corus: Group A announced

Magnus Carlsen, who will turn 18 in less than a month, is one of the favourites to win the 2009 Corus Chess Tournament, and so are Alexander Morozevich, Vassily Ivanchuk and Levon Aronian. Today the participants list of the A Group was officially announced.

Anand, Kramnik and Topalov were all invited, but unfortunately all three declined for this year's edition. Here's the press release which we received just minutes ago from the organizers:

Carlsen, Ivanchuk and Morozevich favourites in 71st Corus Chess Tournament

CORUS CHESS PRESS, November 2008 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äô 17-year-old Magnus Carlsen is one of the favourites to win the 71st edition of the Corus Chess Tournament, together with routiniers Alexander Morozevich and Vassily Ivanchuk. The Corus Chess Tournament will take place from Friday, January 16th to Sunday, February 1st, 2009 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands.

Magnus Carlsen (Norway) won the jubilee event in January this year together with the Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian. Like Carlsen, Aronian is also one of the participants in next year's event.

The two titleholders will meet Alexander Morozevich (Russia) and Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), as their main rivals. Morozevich and Ivanchuk had a very successful year in 2008 and are currently ranked second and third in the world.

Five players will make their debut in the A-group: the young Dutch grandmasters Jan Smeets and Daniel Stellwagen, the sensational Wang Yue from China, who climbed up to the 11th place on the latest world ranking list, the winner of Grandmastergroup B in 2008, Sergei Movsesian, and the flamboyant grandmaster Leinier Dominguez from Cuba (ranked 21st on the FIDE October rating list).

[TABLE=446]


Average rating: 2719 Category: 19

The official participants lists of Grandmaster groups B and C will be published later this year. Together with all amateur players and participants in the special groups, approximately 2,000 chess players are expected to come to Wijk aan Zee for the traditional chess festival in the small beach village at the west coast of The Netherlands, approximately 25 kilometers from Amsterdam.

New rate of play in 2009 As from January 2009, the rate of play in Grandmaster groups A, B and C will change. The rate of play will be: 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour, followed by 15 minutes with 30 seconds per move increment to finish the game.