Levon Aronian to Defend Tournament Title in Netherlands
Amsterdam, Jan 8 (Prensa Latina) Armenian Levon Aronian will start Friday the defense of the title he won last year in the prestigious chess tournament in the Dutch town of Wijk aan Zee.As contenders, there will be the Norwegian and world champion Magnus Carlsen, and gleaming Italian star Fabiano Caruana, main opponents and aspirants to the title.
A total of 14 Grand Masters will struggle until January 25 in the elite group by one of the most coveted in the world of chess trophies, and in which for the first time since 2006, there will be no Russian players.
One of the main attractions is the presence of a woman in the tournament as the successor of the Hungarian Judit Polgar, who has retired from competitions: Chinese Hou Yifan, 20 years old, female world champion.
Thanks to her Elo, the Asian is ranked 70 in the world, only the third woman in the history of chess among the first 100 players in the world, after Georgian Maia Chiburdanidze and Zsuzsa “Susan” Polgar.
They will also take part in the main section Anish Giri host the US Wesley So far, the French Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Polish Radolav Wojtaszek and Azeri Teimour Radjabov.
Rounding out there are Georgian Baadur Jobava, Chinese Ding Liren, Ukrainian Vasily Ivanchuk, the Croatian Ivan Saric and Dutch Loek van Welly.
The tournament will be held by the Round Robin system for 13 rounds, two of which will be played in the cities of Rotterdam and Le Hague.
Source: http://www.plenglish.com
Wesley So will go 13-0 thanks to the divine power.
hahhaha.wishful thinking… Good luck Wes!
“…only the third woman…” Say what?
I’m not saying that I’m good at counting but Maia Chiburdanidze, Hou Yifan, Judit, and Zsuza makes four if I’m not mistaken.