Anand invited for Corus tournament

LONDON, OCT. 25. Viswanathan Anand who has won the Wijk aan Zee tournament several times, will be one of the 14 invited for the next Corus chess tournament to be held from January 12 to 28 at De Moriaan in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands.

Mr. Jeroen van den Berg, president of the Corus (formerly Hoogovens) chess tournament, released the names of the players who among others include Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik. Anand, 30, won this tournament in 1989 and in 1998 and had his career best performance in the 1999 tournament.

The elite line-up qualifies for a Category-19 strength as on date but could vary depending on the ratings of the players in the January 2001 rating list.

``Without the four Dutch players we will be something like Category-22,'' joked Mr. Van den Berg who added, ``The Dutch understand this very well.''

The list: 1. G. Kasparov (Rus), 2. V. Kramnik (Rus), 3. V. Anand (Ind), 4. A. Morozevich (Rus), 5. A. Shirov (ESP), 6. M. Adams (Eng), 7. P. Leko (Hun), 8. V. Ivanchuk (Ukr), 9. V. Topalov (Bul), 10. A. Fedorov (Blr), 11. S. Tiviakov (Ned), 12. J. Piket (Ned), 13. J. Timman (Ned), 14. L. Van Wely (Ned).

- Our Chess Correspondent.

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