Shirov and Van Wely start with wins in Wijk aan Zee

In the first round of the Corus Chess Tournament Peter Leko had a very promising position against Alexei Shirov but eventually lost the game. Local hero Loek van Wely, for the 19th consecutive time in Grandmaster Group A, defeated Nigel Short, winner in Wijk aan Zee in 1986 and 1987. The other five games ended in a draw.

Round 1

In the small coastal town of Wijk aan Zee, where last week's snow was melting in the morning, but new snow came from the sky at night, the annual festival has begun! It's very quiet here during the rest of the winter, but as always the last two weeks of January the town is packed with chess players - hundreds of amateurs and a few dozen top GMs.

For those of you who haven't visited the Corus website yet, I can tell you that it's quite different from previous years. Well, at least the homepage is. Videos have become an important way to bring the news, and I'm honoured and thankful to play such an important role for this great event. Besides the daily news bulletins and 'newsflashes' at coruschess.com you will be able to watch the press conference videos here at ChessVibes. Today we had Loek van Wely which I'll post as soon as possible.

In the A group quite a lot of games ended in a draw, but the great thing about Corus is that with these three groups, there's never a dull moment. Anand was under pressure with Black against last year's winner Karjakin, but managed to hold it. Today he tweeted: 'A draw ...and a sigh of relief ! Oh God ! I have to play much better than this. Must find my form quickly too many rough edges to my game.'

For at least one round Van Wely is a true KingLoek again, with a fine victory over Nigel Short. At the press conference Hans Böhm asked if it would have made a difference it Short had tried ...g5 and ...h5 at some point. Van Wely thought the result would have been the same, but Short would at least have had more fun in the game!

A tired and disappointed Peter Leko showed up in the press room after a very long game against Alexei Shirov. The Hungarian had come up with a good novelty but then spoilt his advantage. "I miraculously escaped before the first time control, but at the second I collapsed." A fortunate but good start for Shirov, who won the 500 Euro daily prize for fighting his way back in the game.



Giri, Nisipeanu and Sutovsky started with good wins in the B group and of these games, the 250 Euro best game prize went to 15-year-old Dutch champion Giri. Against So, Naiditsch couldn't win an ending that's suddenly showing up quite often: R vs black-squared B and fixed h-pawns on h3 and h4.

In the C group, Grandelius, Li Chao, Vocaturo and Robson won their games to grab the lead. The 100 Euro prize was awarded to Li Chao for his victory over Benjamin Bok.

Games round 1

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C