October 25 2006 - Corus Chess Press

World champion Vladimir Kramik has confirmed his participation at the Corus Chess Tournament (January 12-28, 2007)

During this tournament there will be much attention for the game Kramnik - Topalov. This will be the first time they meet after the tumultuous match in Elista for the world championship.

With the confirmation of Kramnik the grandmaster A-group is complete. Once again the Corus Chess Tournament consists of a very strong group of players among which no less than 6 of the world top 10 with an average rating of 2723 in the A-group the tournament will be the strongest of the world in 2007.

The A-group has 3 players younger than the age of 20 : Karjakin, Carlsen and Radjabov.

The list of the A-group contains name, country, rating and ranking of 1. October 2006.

Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria, 2813, 1)
Viswanathan Anand (India, 2779, 2)
Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2750, 3)
Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750, 4)
Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2747, 5)
Levon Aronian (Armenië, 2741, 7)
Teymour Radjabov (Azerbaijan, 2729, 11)
Alexey Shirov (Spain, 2720, 14)
Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2703, 20)
Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2698, 21)
Sergey Tiviakov (The Netherlands, 2680, 27)
Loek van Wely (The Netherlands, 2676, 29)
Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine, 2672, 35)
Alexander Motylev (Russia, 2662, 44)

Drawing of lots will be on January 12th. First round on Saturday 13th.