Anand to vie for sixth Corus title

Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands:

World No 2 Viswanathan Anand will be back in action in the new season at the Corus chess tournament, where he will vie for his sixth title. The Indian ace scored a record fifth win in the last edition of the event. He will begin as the second seed at the category 19 classical chess tournament that will witness a strong and balanced field. His main rivals will be world's top-rated Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and World Champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. Levon Aronian of Armenia, Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, former World champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine and Peter Svidler of Russia are among others vying for the top honours. The average rating of the participants is 2719 in the 13-round tournament to be contested by 14 participants. The match between Kramnik and Topalov will be the one to watch out for as they will be meeting for the first time after their world championships duel, when the Bulgarian accused the Russian of cheating. There will be two more tournaments organised simultaneously for amateurs Grandmasters. The events have been christened 'A', 'B' and 'C'. The exploits of World's youngest GM Parimarjan Negi will be closely watched when he takes on a not-so-strong field in 'C' category.