Corus Chess 2010 starts today

And so the much anticipated 2010 Corus Chess invitational tournament has finally arrived. Tonight, at around 8:30 pm (Manila time) all the games will start in what promises to be one of the most publicized and well covered chess tournament this year. You won't believe the media attention will throw upon this one. The line up of participants from A group to C are nothing short of spectacular. In Group A, names such as Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Karjakin, Leko, Shirov, Short and Nakamura stands tall among the rest of the pack, each belongs to different chess generation and sporting different styles of playing from one another. With the exception of Kramnik and Leko, of course, which holds very similar philosophy in chess. My bet? I love Anand to win Corus A but I think Kramnik will show something good here. Oh, Magnus, Magnus.

In Group B, a whole bunch of very popular and promising prodigies such as So, Negi, Howell and Giri could easily make this group as the most "over-rated" yup, you heard it right, "over-rated" invitational chess grouping this year. Don't be surprise if many fans will follow Corus B with the same number of following like many major "invite only" tournaments such as Linares, FIDE Grand Pix, Amber, Bilbao etc. It's very hard to pick in this group but I love Negi and So's chances here, based on their recent performances. Aren't it excites you the very thought of seeing Wesley in the same group as Carlsen next year? I am. But let us see.

Then don't forget the C group as well. What you have here competing is the most promising prodigy to come out of both the North and South American continent since Bobby Fischer and Hikaru Nakamura. We're talking about the 15 year old super talent from the US, GM Rey Robson. Also faces that's quite familiar with Filipino chess fans such as Li Chao of China and Abhijeet Gupta of India, two frequent visitors in the country when major tournaments are being held here, will also compete for the chance to get promoted to B group next year.

One special note is the inclusion of GM Bong Villamayor to chessdom live games commentators. Tonight, he'll be commenting live the game of Naiditch-So.

Corus Chess 2010 official website

Corus A, round 1

S. Karjakin - V. Anand
L. Dominguez - V. Kramnik
P. Leko - A. Shirov
F. Caruana - V. Ivanchuk
S. Tiviakov - M. Carlsen
J. Smeets - H. Nakamura
L. van Wely - N. Short

Corus B, round 1

Ni - E. l'Ami
E. Sutovsky - D. Reinderman
T. Nyback - L. Nisipeanu
A. Giri - P. Harikrishna
D. Howell - P. Negi
A. Muzychuk - V. Akobian
A. Naiditsch - W. So

Corus C, round 1

R. Robson - S. Swaminathan
R. Swinkels - A. Gupta
M. Muzychuk - N. Grandelius
S. Kuipers - K. Lie
Z. Peng - R. van Kampen
B. Bok - L. Chao
D. Vocaturo - S. Plukkel