Good luck, Wesley by Ed Andaya

Good luck, Wesley
by Ed Andaya
Monday, 10 January 2011 20:09

GM Wesley So of the Philippines opens the new year with another major, major tournament when he vies in the 2011 Tata Steel Corus Group B chess championship scheduled Jan. 14-30 at the de Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.

So, who vaulted into No. 3 in the list of the world’ top junior players in the recent FIDE rating list with an ELO of 2686, will participate in the 14-player, category 17 tournament to be held in this popular Dutch resort town for the 73rd straight year.

The 17-year-old Filipino champion, who led the country to a surprise silver medal finish in the recent Asian Games in Guanghzhou, China last month, is seeded fifth in the prestigious, 14-player, category-17 tournament formerly known as Hoogovens.

GM Radek Wojtaszek of Poland is the top seed with an ELO of 2726.

GM David Navara of Czech Republic is second seed with ELO 2708 and GM Laurant Fressinet of France is third seed with ELO 2707 and GM Zahar Efimenko of Ukraine is fourth seed with ELO 2701.

The other players entered in the 17-day, all-GM tournament are GMs Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia, sixth with ELO 2667; Le Quang Liem of Vietnam, seventh with ELO 2664; Luke McShane of England, eighth with ELO 2664; Surya Ganguly of India, ninth with ELO 2651; Li Chao of China, 10 th with ELO 2649; Jon Ludvig Hammer of Norway, 11th with ELO 2647; Vlad Tkachiev of France, 12 th with ELO 2636; Friso Nijoboer of the Netherlands, 13th with ELO 2584; and Wouter Spoelman of the Netherlands, 14th with ELO 2547.

The first round is set on Jan. 14, while the final round is scheduled on Jan. 30.

All rounds begin at 13:30 hours, except on the last round which starts at 12:00 hours.

Rest days are onJan. 19, 24 and 27.

This will be the third straight year that So was invited to take part in this tough, round-robin competition divided into three categories: Group A (category 20/average rating 2740), Gorup B (category 17/average rating 2659) and Group C (category 11/ELO 2507).

In 2009, So made history when he topped Group C in his maiden appearance in the tournament, beating a star-studded field which included GMs Anish Giri of the Netherlands, Tiger Hillarp Persson of Sweden and Abhijeet Gupta of India.

Full article here.