Harikrishna to play in Corus tourney

CHENNAI, NOV. 29. Young International Master Pentyala Harikrishna has accepted to play in the traditional Corus chess tournament at Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands from January 12, 2001.

Harikrishna will play in the Grandmaster Group `B' and will receive appearance money in addition to expenses. First, he was offered the Reserve Group at Istanbul with little money but Harikrishna refused it preferring to play in the Indian National `A' instead.

On November 23 when a player dropped out from the Grandmaster Group B, he was given a place in the group which he accepted before the December 1 deadline set for him.

Harikrishna will become the third Indian player to compete in this prestigious tournament. Manuel Aaron played in this event in 1962 and Viswanathan Anand has played regularly since 1989 and won several times.

``The factor that led to his invitation was his young age and 2500 rating combination, not to mention his big talent,'' said Mr

Jeroen van den Berg, President of the Corus Chess Club, on Wednesday.

Several young players have made their mark in this tournament and the Wipro-sponsored boy from Andhra Pradesh would get a big opportunity to make a lasting impression and also complete his GM norm requirements.

Peter Leko of Hungary became the youngest Grandmaster in history at this venue in 1994. That record was subsequently broken but this opportunity to play on the same elite stage as Vladimir Kramnik, Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand will give him far greater notice than he has had so far in his career.

Harikrishna was the World under-10 boys' champion in 1986 at Menorca. His rivals in the 12-player tournament will be Mikhail Gurevich and Boris Gulko, among others. A victory in the 2001 `B' Group will guarantee him a place in the 2002 super category section which will be category 19 at least. The category for these events will vary after FIDE announces its Elo rating list in January 2001.

The Group `A' players list (rating order): G. Kasparov (Rus), V. Kramnik (Rus), V. Anand (Ind), A. Morozevich (Rus), M. Adams (Eng), A. Shirov (ESP), Peter Leko (Hun), V. Ivanchuk (Ukr), V. Topalov (Bul), J. Piket (Ned), A. Fedorov (Blr), L. van Wely (Ned), Jan Timman (Ned) and Sergey Tiviakov (Ned).

- Our Chess Correspondent

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