Top Grand Slam event is about to start

Anand and Kramnik will not be present at this year's Corus edition. Topalov will also skip the event. However, this year's Corus will again be a top Grand Slam event with many high ranked players participating.

Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik will not be present at this year's Corus edition, informs the leading chess information website Chessdom.com. Topalov will also skip the event, as he will concentrate on the upcoming challengers match. However, this year's Corus will again be a top Grand Slam event with many high ranked players participating. The winners of last year GM Carlsen and GM Aronian will compete again, n1 seeded will be GM Morozevich. Corus will be held from 16 January - 1 February in Wijk aan Zee. This will be the 71st Corus Chess Tournament and will again be divided into A, B, C, and amateur groups. Complete list of the participants as stated by http://forums.chessdom.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=28 : Corus, group A GM Alexander Morozevich RUS 2787 GM Magnus Carlsen NOR 2786 GM Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2786 GM Levon Aronian ARM 2757 GM Teymour Radjabov AZE 2751 GM Wang Yue CHN 2736 GM Michael Adams ENG 2734 GM Sergei Movsesian SVK 2732 GM Sergei Karjakin UKR 2730 GM Gata Kamsky USA 2729 GM Leinier Dominguez CUB 2719 GM Loek van Wely NED 2618 GM Daniel Stellwagen NED 2605 GM Jan Smeets NED 2604 Average rating: 2720 Category: 19 Corus, group B GM Krishnan Sasikiran IND 2694 GM Zahar Efimenko UKR 2680 GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov UZB 2672 GM Alexander Motylev RUS 2672 GM Francisco Vallejo Pons ESP 2664 GM Andrei Volokitin UKR 2659 GM Nigel Short ENG 2642 GM Fabiano Caruana ITA 2640 GM David Navara CZE 2633 GM Erwin l'Ami NED 2610 GM Jan Werle NED 2582 WGM Hou Yifan CHN 2578 GM Henrique Mecking BRA 2567 GM Dimitri Reinderman NED 2543 Average rating : 2631 Category : 16 Participants group C GM Wesley So PHI 2610 GM David Howell ENG 2593 GM Abhijeet Gupta IND 2580 GM Tiger Hillarp Persson SWE 2543 GM Friso Nijboer NED 2540 GM Eduardo Iturrizaga VEN 2538 IM Manuel Leon Hoyos MEX 2535 GM Oleg Romanishin UKR 2532 GM Frank Holzke GER 2524 FM Anish Giri RUS 2466 WGM Dronavalli Harika IND 2462 IM Roeland Pruijssers NED 2458 IM Manuel Bosboom NED 2416 FM Ali Bitalzadeh NED 2370 Average rating : 2512 Category : 11 Corus 2008 first place was shared by Aronian and Carlsen (http://tournaments.chessdom.com/corus-chess-tournament) who later proceeeded to the Grand Slam FInal.