Tata For Now

It is time once again for the annual Corus Chess Tournament in the Netherlands. Although now it is called Tata, which is the new owner of the steel factory in Wijk aan Zee that has annually sponsored the event. Yes - I am psyched!

Regretably, I will not be reporting from there this year as I have done the past two tournaments. But I will be following the action every day. I hope you do, too, as it is one of the premier tournaments in the world and it is so easy to follow. Here are two sites anyone can access http://www.chessbase.com/ or http://www.tatasteelchess.com/tournament/information . And of course there are many other options for the chess internet savvy.

Recently, as I started looking forward to the daily action, I realized that I have materials from last year that I never published that might still be enjoyable reading or viewing. So I am passing them along before they get another year older.

I wrote an article for the pending issue of Empire Chess magazine - which you can now read on-line thru the NYSCA.NET website at http://www.nysca.net/winter11.pdf

Plus I will be posting stuff here from last year in the coming weeks as I only recently learned how to utilize YouTube to post my videos. Well, I thought I learned how ... but maybe I will have to start with beginner steps that hopefully will still work...

Anyway, here is my first real interview as a reporter last year. It was an easy one because Nigel Short just LOVES to be interviewed and he's very entertaining. He also came into the media room after being the first player to slow down Alexi Shirov. Alexi had ripped off 5 straight wins to start the tournament last year and Nigel made him play on his terms and Shirov ended up in a completely boring, even position. Draw. So Nigel was in a very good mood. Hope you like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQGeZ5fdMuA

Follow Tata as the field looks even better than last year. NY's own Hikaru Nakamura is out to win it this year. It should be a very exciting event.