Wijk aan Zee 2009 – players, places, dates and times

Wijk aan Zee 2009 – information and schedule

Wijk aan Zee (pronounced: wyk aahn zeh – to rhyme with "like", not "weak") is a small town on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk in the province of North Holland of the Netherlands.

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The prestigious yearly Corus tournament, formerly called Hoogovens, takes place in three Grandmaster Groups. There are also a number of amateur groups taking part at the same time. The three Grandmaster tournaments have 14 players each and are round robins (each competitor plays against every other).

Participants of Grandmaster Group A

The average rating in Group A is 22 points less than in the previous year, and the tournament has become a category 19 instead of 20. One interesting new player is Chinese GM Wang Yue, who has not lost a single game for nine months now and is unbeaten in 82 games (after round nine of the Chess Olympiad in Dresden French GM Etienne Bacrot emerged from a game against Wang shaking his head: "That guy really cannot be beaten!"). Wang, who is number 11 in the world today, is close to breaking Vladimir Kramnik's record of 82 games in 1999 to 2000, and that of Mikhail Tal, who played 93 games without defeat in 1973/74. The legendary 63-game unbeaten streak by José Raúl Capablanca in the period from 1916 to 1924 pales by comparison.

Another interesting debutante is Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez, who recently won the World Blitz Championship in Almaty and who is fast developing into a super-star. GM Sergei Movsesian, who won the Group B section in 2008, is also playing in the Wijk aan Zee A Group for the first time, as are the young Dutch grandmasters Jan Smeets and Daniel Stellwagen.

Participants of Grandmaster Group B

The average rating in Group B is 13 points higher than in the previous year, and the tournament has advanced from a category 15 to 16. We find a former FIDE world champions here, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, a former world championship challenger, Nigel Short, and a former world championship candidate, Henrique Mecking. Of particular interest are the youngsters Fabiano Caruana, 16, who last Sunday won a strong rapid chess tournament in Turin with an 8½/9 point score; and Chinese WGM Hou Yifan (pronounced ho-EE fan) who will turn 15 a month after she finishes the Wijk aan Zee tournament.

Participants of Grandmaster Group C

In Group C the average is 26 points higher than in 2008, and the tournament is a category 11 instead of 10. We are interested to see how the Junior World Champions Abhijeet Gupta and Harika Dronavalli, both from India, fare. We will also get to know 14-year-old FM Anish Giri, who is of Nepalese-Russian extraction and on his way to completing his IM title.

Rate of play
This has changed for the 2009 event. For the Grandmaster groups A, B and C it is 40 moves in two hours, then 20 moves in one hour, followed by 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30 second increment per move.

Location: The tournament takes place in the De Moriaan Community Centre (Dorpsduinen 4, 1949 EG Wijk aan Zee). There is running commentary on the games of the Grandmaster Groups in a special Chess Pavilion, on the Village Green in Wijk aan Zee (one minute walk from De Moriaan).

Accommodation: For information contact the local Tourist Office. VVV IJmond Noord, Julianaplein 13-15, 1949 AT Wijk aan Zee. Telephone: + 31 (0)251 374253. E-mail: info@vvvijmondnoord.nl Website: http://www.visitwijkaanzee.nl

Schedule (playing days)

Games begin at 13:30h local time (CET), except for the last round on February 1st, which begins at 12:30h. There are three rest days, on January 20th, 25th, and 30th.

Links

• Official web site