Five-Year Plan for the Elite

Kramnik and Topalov will play again in Holland

Last weekend, the first games of the oldest chess tournament, which usually brings together an elite group of participants, were played in Wijk aan Zee. According to a long-standing tradition, competitions in the Dutch town open a series of super tournaments of the year.

First held in 1938, the tournament is starting for the 69th time and, along with the Christmas competition in Hastings, is one of the longest-lived chess tournaments, but is noticeably ahead of the “English” in prestige. In recent decades, representatives of the chess elite have regularly participated in the tournament in Wijk aan Zee, for whom this tournament is a kind of testing ground for demonstrating the ambitions of world champions and contenders for this title. It is enough to note that for the last five years the best three of the chess world have been constantly playing there - world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who occupies third position in the FIDE rating list, and the holders of the highest ratings, ex-world champion Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand, and the Indian grandmaster is record holder for the number of victories in Wijk aan Zee. Anand has won the first prize five times, three times in the last four years.

This time the tournament, held with January 13 to 28, assembled the lineup 19th category (average rating of participants - 2719). In addition to the mentioned favorites, Russian grandmasters Peter Svidler and Alexander Motylev (as the winner of last year’s tournament “B”), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Teymur Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Ruslan Ponomarev (Ukraine), Alexey Shirov (Spain) and the most promising of young - Sergey Karyakin (Ukraine), Magnus Carlsen (Norway) and David Navara (Czech Republic). The owners of the site are represented by Luc van Wely and Sergey Tivyakov.

Despite Anand's impressive track record, the greatest intrigue is the performance of the participants in the match for the chess crown, Kramnik and Topalov. Interest is fueled by the Bulgarian's official challenge to his recent opponent for a rematch in April this year in Sofia under the patronage of the President of Bulgaria and with a prize fund of $1.5 million (one million for the world champion). True, the challenge is not yet supported by financial guarantees, which should go to FIDE.

At the start, the lead was taken by Teimour Radjabov, who managed to beat Luc van Wely with black pieces. In the remaining games, peaceful outcomes were recorded, including the fights between the favorites. Kramnik, with black, repeated the position three times in the game with Sergei Karjakin, Veselin Topalov, with white, was unable to shake Sergei Motylev’s defense, and Anand, with black, fettered Sergei Ponomarev’s initiative.

Oleg STETSKO