Chess Gateway: Corus Chess Tournament 2007

11.01.2007: The Who's and What's of the tournament -- read all about it in the Chess Gateway preview

12.01.2007: Opening Ceremony and drawing of lots takes place. Read More

13.01.2007 Round 1: All draws in the A-Group, apart from Teymour Radjabov defeating Loek van Wely with Black. In Group-B, Bologan, Eljanov, Xiangzhi, and Smeets took full points. Group-C saw mainly decisive games, Negi, Berg, Nepomanichtchi, and Yifan winning, the later over N. Kosintseva. report

14.01.2007 Round 2: Anand defeats last year's Group-B joint winner Motylev, the Russian sacrificing 3 pawns for an initiative that he did not manage to make go the distance. Topalov got the point against van Wely, and Aronian-Ponomariov was decided in favour of the Armenian. Magnus Carlsen will be kicking himself after missing a win against David Navara, who went on to defeat the Norwegian with black. Kramnik-Shirov was a real be-dazzler, as Shirov was an hour down on the clock by move 8 or so! He spent an amazingly long time on his move 7...c6 and really the game was decided here, though the game lasted 37 moves. Karjakin-Radjabov was a Queen's Indian, which saw black having to give his queen for a rook and minor piece. With excellent endgame knowledge, however, Karjakin was able to hold for the draw. report

15.01.2007 Round 3: All in all, another day of work in GM-A, apart from Kramnik-Tiviakov who drew in 40 minutes, blitzing out 28 moves. Full points went to Ruslan Ponomariov who gave Magnus Carlsen huge trouble, and Teymour Radjabov defeated an out of sorts Alexey Shirov. The other games were drawn, but Sergey Karjakin was ever so close to taking a point from Veselin Topalov who was perhaps distracted by other matters and did not seem totally tuned in today -- that is to take nothing away from Karjakin, though, who played an excellent game. report

16.01.2007 Round 4: A very high day of play today, seeing Veselin Topalov lure Alexey Shirov in to a home-cooked line, and a marathon win for Teymour Radjabov over Sergey Tiviakov. The rest of the games were draws which saw World Champion Kramnik tested all the way by David Navara. report

18.01.2007 Round 5: Teymour Radjabov now has a firm grip on this tournament, beating David Navara with black to take a 1 point lead. Loek van Wely was the other winner of the day, defeating Alexey Shirov who is having a very bad time of things. report

19.01.2007 Round 6: Winners of the day are Vladimir Kramnik, defeating Vishy Anand and Sergey Karjakin prolongs Alexey Shirov's agony handing him his 5th defeat in 6 games. Fighter David Navara holds World #1 Veselin Topalov to a draw. report

20.01.2007 Round 7: Topalov convincingly defeats Ponomariov to close in on leader Radjabov who drew against Vishy Anand. Other winners of the round were David Navara over Loek van Wely, and Peter Svidler with black against Magnus Carlsen. report

21.01.2007 Round 8: Veselin Topalov carries out a speedy defeat of Vishy Anand, and Teymour Radjabov suffers his first defeat of the tournament to Levon Aronian. Topalov now leads the tournament by a half point over Radjabov. Other winners were Peter Svidler with black again over Alexander Motylev and Sergey Karjakin over David Navara. report

23.01.2007 Round 9: Alexey Shirov notches up his first full point of the tournament defeating David Navara. Wins came also for Vishy Anand, bouncing back from his round 8 collapse against Veselin Topalov. Today the Indian GM got the better of Loek van Wely to recover his point. The other victor of the round was Ruslan Ponomariov, who defeated Sergey Karjakin. report

24.01.2007 Round 10: Veselin Topalov extends his lead to 1 point thanks to a win over Norway's Magnus Carlsen, who is having a surprisingly dull tournament. Sergey Karjakin loses his second game on the spin, this time to Vishy Anand, who has pulled his socks up following his defeat at the hands of Topalov in round 8. The rest of the games were drawn. report

26.01.2007 Round 11: Sensational stuff at the tournament in round 11, as Veselin Topalov is defeated by Peter Svidler, who is now in joint second place (with Radjabov and Aronian) on 7 points, just a half point behind Topalov who still leads. The other winner of the round was Levon Aronian, who defeated Sergey Karjakin who is having a bad finish to the event. The other games were drawn. report

27.01.2007 Round 12: Teymour radjabov takes a much needed win with the black pieces over Alexander Motylev, and Loek van Wely defeats Topalov slayer Peter Svidler. David Navara also regains his feet with a fine win over former FIDE Champion Ruslan Ponomariov. The long awaited showdown between Kramnik and Topalov produces a draw but no hand shake. Other games were also drawn. report

28.01.2007 Round 13: A very exciting climax to the tournament, as it came right down to the wire in deciding the top places. Joint leaders Veselin Topalov and Teymour Radjabov drew, and were joined in the top slot by Levon Aronian, who defeated Dutch GM Sergey Tiviakov. World Champion Vladimir Kramnik defeated the other Dutchman of the group, Loek van Wely, and Sergey Karjakin took the full point from Peter Svidler. Topalov, Radjabov, and Aronian are joint winners of Group-A, then, with 8.5 points, over Vladimir Kramnik's 8.0. Vishy Anand has to settle for 7.5 this year. In the B-Group, Pavel Eljanov takes first, with 9 points. There is a 4-way split for 2nd between Sargissian, Jakovenko, Xiangzhi, and Vachier-Lagrave. In Group-C there was last minute drama as an attack of nerves deprives Ian Nepomniachtchi of victory and hands him his first defeat, allowing Michal Krasenkow of Poland to pip him at the winners post, leap-frogging him by a half point. Two norms are made in the Group, Nepomniachtchi gaining a GM norm, and Hou Yifan of China (12 years old) gaining an IM/WGM norm. report

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