Loek Van Wely during a recent trip to the USA, Photo Betsy Dynako
In the first round of the Corus Chess 2010 super-tournament, Loek Van Wely and Alexei Shirov were the only two to win in the "A" group. Van Wely's win was a smooth positional victory over Nigel Short (and the only game of the day to feature 1.d4) while Shirov prevailed in a wild battle against Leko.
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Our own Hikaru Nakamura drew to Jan Smeets but had chances for a better game after the Dutchman diverged early in a theoretical Najdorf. Instead of 14...Qc5, the more normal-looking Nxd5 Rxd5 Bb7 followed by Rc8 leaves White a few tempos behind where he'd like to be in this type of Sicilian structure.
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In the B-section, GM Varuzhan Akobian drew against Anna Muzychuk while GM Ray Robson won against WGM Soumya Swaminathan in the "C" section.
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See all games and results on the official website. In round two (which begins Sunday, 1/17/10 at 7:30 AM EST), Nakamura will face Short with White.
Follow the action on the official website, the Internet Chess Club, chessdom, chessbase and look for reportage from GM Ian Rogers on CLO.