22nd January, 2003

THE 65th Corus tournament taking place on the Dutch coast of Wijk aan
Zee seems to be merely a pawn in a larger political chess battle this
year, as events off the board look as if they are largely responsible
for the lacklustre performances of some of the top players.

Negotiations between world chess federation, FIDE, and Ruslan Ponomariov
now seem to have reached an impasse. FIDE recently threatened
Ponomariov with disqualification if he did not to sign his contract to
play Garry Kasparov as part of the reunification plan agreed last year
in Prague. Ponomariov, currently playing (and badly) in Wijk aan Zee,
reacted with an open letter to FIDE.

The ongoing squabble has now embroiled another Wijk player as FIDE
raised the stakes by threatening to replace Ponomariov with fellow
Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk as Kasparov's opponent in the match. All of
which has resulted in Ponomariov having one of the worst tournaments of
his career as he languishes close to the bottom of the table while he
negotiates with FIDE; and similarly Ivanchuk's results also indicate
that he too is being affected by the dispute, and so far has drawn all
of his eight games - five of which have been below 22 moves.

World champion Vladimir Kramnik lengthy lay-off from classical chess
also continues to cause concern. His last classical tournament was as
far back as June 2001 at Dortmund. At Wijk he's now lost two games and
looks nothing like the calibre of player who sensationally took the
world title from Kasparov in 2000.

Meanwhile Indian ace Vishy Anand, who has the luxury of not being
involved in any of the disputes and arguments from rival camps, has
concentrated on the playing front and has effortlessly moved into a half
point lead at the end of round eight.
Standings: 1 V Anand 5.5/8; 2-4 L Van Wely, A Grischuk, J Polgar 5; 5 A
Shirov 4.5; 6-11 V Ivanchuk, A Karpov, V Kramnik, V Topalov, T Radjabov,
E Bareev 4; 12 M Krasenkow 3; 13 R Ponomariov 2.5; 14 J Timman 1.5.

A Shirov - V Kramnik
Corus 'A', (5)
Sicilian Sveshnikov
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 e5 6 Ndb5 d6 7 Bg5 a6 8 Na3
b5 9 Bxf6 gxf6 10 Nd5 f5 11 Bd3 Be6 12 0-0 Bxd5 13 exd5 Ne7 14 c3 Bg7 15
Qh5 e4 16 Bc2 0-0 17 Rae1 Qc8 18 Bb3 a5 19 Qg5 Qb7 20 f3 h6 21 Qg3 a4 22
Bc2 b4 23 Nc4 Qxd5 24 fxe4 Qxc4 25 exf5 Nd5 26 f6 Nxf6 27 Rxf6 Rae8 28
Ref1 Re2 29 Bd3 Qc5+ 30 Kh1 Re3 31 R6f3 Rxf3 32 Qxf3 bxc3 33 bxc3 Qe5 34
c4 Kh8 35 Bc2 Qa5 36 Qd3 f5 37 Qxd6 Qc3 38 Bd3 Qd2 39 c5 Qxa2 40 c6 Rg8
41 Qg6 Rf8 42 c7 Qg8 43 Qc6 Rc8 44 Ba6 1-0

JOHN B HENDERSON, Press Officer