Topalov and Anand win Wijk aan Zee

• Anand and Topalov tied for first 1.5 points ahead of Adams and Ivanchuk.
• Anand's rating passed 2800 for the first time.
• Nobody went through the tournament undefeated. Topalov lost to Kamsky; Anand lost to Adams.
• The best relative performance was Karjakin; the worst was Sokolov.
• Kamsky drew just one game, THANK YOU for the fighting chess. Unfortunately his score was +4 -8.

Wijk aan Zee Begins

This year's Wijk aan Zee (Corus) tournament started today.

The participants (Average rating 2716, Category 19):
Veselin Topalov 2801 - 2
Viswanathan Anand 2792 - 3
Levon Aronian 2752 - 5
Peter Leko 2740 - 7
Vassily Ivanchuk 2729 - 8
Boris Gelfand 2723 - 9
Etienne Bacrot 2717 - 12
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2709 - 15
Michael Adams 2707 - 17
Ivan Sokolov 2689 - 24
Gata Kamsky 2686 - 25
Sergey Tiviakov 2669 - 33
Sergey Karjakin 2660 - 42
Loek van Wely 2647 - 59

FIDE Candidate Match Pairings

As expected, Kasparov and Kramnik will not be participating in the FIDE candidate matches. They have been replaced by Shirov and Malakhov. Per the regulations, the pairings for round 1 are as follows:

Aronian - Carlsen
Leko - Gurevich
Ponomariov - Rublevsky
Gelfand - Kasimjanov
Bacrot - Kamsky
Grischuk - Malakhov
Polgar - Bareev
Shirov - Adams

Each match will consist of 6 games. There will be two rounds of matches, reducing these 16 players down to 4. The four finalists will join Topalov, Svidler, Anand and Morozevich in a FIDE world championship tournament next year.

Round 1 of the candidate matches is scheduled for October 2006 (assuming of course they can find sponsorship).

FIDE Rating List

1 Kasparov, Garry 2812 (retired)
2 Topalov, Veselin 2801 (the third player to break 2800 after Kasparov and Kramnik)
3 Anand, Viswanathan 2792
4 Svidler, Peter 2765
5 Aronian, Levon 2752
6 Kramnik, Vladimir 2741
7 Leko, Peter 2740
8 Ivanchuk, Vassily 2729
9 Gelfand, Boris 2723
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2723
11 Morozevich, Alexander 2721
12 Grischuk, Alexander 2717
Bacrot, Etienne 2717
14 Polgar, Judit 2711
15 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 2709 (new member of the 2700 club)
Shirov, Alexei 2709
17 Adams, Michael 2707
18 Akopian, Vladimir 2704
19 Radjabov, Teimour 2700

(Nisipeanu fell off the 2700 list)