The 63rd Wijk aan Zee (Beverwijk from 1938 until 1967) chess festival took place in De Moriaan sports centre, Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, under the direction of Jeroen van den Berg. There were roughly 1500 players in total, and the organisers announced that it was the biggest chess festival in the world. The building had been extended to allow for a larger commentary room, such was the popularity of the event with the fans. The cost of holding the event was about one million Dutch guilders. On the income side, some focused players offered 100 guilders for a cup of coffee without waiting for the change. The main sponsor (for the 2nd year) was Corus, which was a merge of British Steel and the former sponsor Hoogovens. The event was officially opened at the steelworks in IJmuiden. Franswillem Briët described how proud he was to maintain the tradition, despite Corus going through a difficult period. He spoke of gloomy business forecasts and of the job redundancies already incurred. There were some speculations in the chess community that the next (64th) edition might be the last, as nothing had been guaranteed beyond that. However, the gloom soon lifted at the prospect of seeing two world champions, the world number one, and the rest of the top ten, all in the same tournament.

On Friday morning (January 12th), 230 boards with pieces were ready in the main playing hall. Anneke Eder, the tournament secretary, had most things under control. Niek Verweij, technical employee of the Lost Boys company, checked the sensor boards, who were connected to monitors, the press room, and the internet. Peter Admiraal, the catering manager at De Moriaan for 22 years, was preparing the food. The fourteen grandmasters in the prestigious A group played from January 13 (Round 1) to January 28 (Round 13), with rest days on January 15, 19 and 24. Of the world's top 10 players, only Boris Gelfand (Elo rated #10 in the world) was missing. The participants were (in order of Elo) Garry Kasparov (#1), FIDE World Champion Viswanathan Anand (#2), the Classical World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (#3), Michael Adams (#4), Peter Leko (#5), Alexander Morozevich (#6), Alexey Shirov (#7), Veselin Topalov (#8), Vassily Ivanchuk (#9), Loek van Wely (#12), and the bit lower rated quartet Jeroen Piket (#55), Jan Timman (#61), Sergei Tiviakov (#99) and Alexei Fedorov (#155). It was the first top event in the 21st century (not counting the new year events). Jeff Sonas considered it a candidate for the strongest supertournament of all time. The winner would get 20,000 Dutch guiders (about $8,600, or $12,300 in 2019 value).

The games started at 1:30 pm. Chess fans were wondering who was the strongest player in the world, Kasparov, Kramnik, or Anand? Right after the Kasparov - Kramnik Classical World Championship Match (2000), Kasparov had said that "I will see you soon in Wijk aan Zee. As the first player in history, I will win the tournament for the third consecutive time." No-one had won three in a row, and so, on the eve of the tournament, Kasparov boldly announced, "Okay, let's see what we can do about that". His Round 1 win against Tiviakov won him the 500 guilder "Spectator's Prize" for Game of the Day. After 8 rounds it was Shirov, however, who was in the lead by a whole point. Probably the seeds for Kasparov's victory were sown by his Round 9 win against Shirov. Shirov walked into a line Kasparov had prepared for him and was more or less lost after only 15 moves. Prior to the game there was no handshake between the players, just a hard look in each other's eyes. Kasparov had said that he would not shake hands unless he received an apology for part of a letter by Shirov published in New in Chess Nr. 6 2000, in which he suggested that the Kramnik match had been arranged so that Kasparov should win.

In the final round Kasparov drew against Adams to secure first place. Anand had not been at any time in the race for first place, and was probably tired (or unprepared) after the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2000). He had won in Round 2 against Tiviakov, and then drawn all his games. However, with a final sprint of 3 out of 3 against the trio of Piket, Timman and Van Wely, he achieved the undivided 2nd place. Kramnik and Ivanchuk shared 3rd. Kasparov said afterwards, "In 1999 I won here with ten points, last year I scored nine and a half points and now only nine. It's going badly with me".

Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands, 13-28 January 2001

              Age Elo   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4
  1 Kasparov   37 2849  * ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 1 ½ ½ 1 1  9
  2 Anand      31 2790  ½ * ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 1  8½
 =3 Kramnik    25 2772  ½ ½ * 1 ½ 0 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 ½  8
 =3 Ivanchuk   31 2717  ½ ½ 0 * ½ 1 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 1  8
 =5 Adams      29 2746  ½ ½ ½ ½ * 1 ½ ½ ½ 0 1 ½ 1 ½  7½
 =5 Morozevich 23 2745  ½ ½ 1 0 0 * ½ 0 ½ 1 1 1 1 ½  7½
 =5 Shirov     28 2718  0 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ * ½ 1 ½ 1 1 1 1  7½
  8 Leko       21 2745  ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ * ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ ½  6½
  9 Topalov    25 2718  0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ * ½ ½ 1 ½ 0  5½
=10 Fedorov    28 2575  0 ½ ½ 0 1 0 ½ ½ ½ * ½ 0 0 1  5
=10 Van Wely   28 2700  ½ 0 0 ½ 0 0 0 1 ½ ½ * 1 ½ ½  5
=12 Piket      32 2632  ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 0 1 0 * ½ ½  4½
=12 Tiviakov   27 2597  0 0 0 ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ * 1  4½
 14 Timman     49 2629  0 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ 1 0 ½ ½ 0 *  4

Sources

CHESS magazine, April 2001, pp. 4-24
Wikipedia article: Tata Steel Chess Tournament#2001
TWIC #325 (http://theweekinchess.com/html/twic...)
Chess.gr website (http://www.chess.gr/tourn/2001/coru...)
FIDE rating list January 2001 (http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo200...)
DiagonaleTV video (before rd. 9) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1j...)
2001, Wijk aan Zee (online tournament book, https://b-ok.org/ireader/651323)
Leidsch Dagblad, 12 January 2001, p. 1 (https://leiden.courant.nu/issue/LD/...)
Leidsch Dagblad, 13 January 2001, p. 57 (https://leiden.courant.nu/issue/LD/...)
Leidsch Dagblad, 25 January 2001, p. 2 (https://leiden.courant.nu/issue/LD/...)
Leidsch Dagblad, 29 January 2001, p. 19 (https://leiden.courant.nu/issue/LD/...)
Arvind Aaron in The Hindu, 30 January 2001 (https://www.thehindu.com/2001/01/30...)
Lars Grahn in Tidskrift för Schack, 2/2001, pp. 66-78 (http://www.schack.se/tfsarkiv/histo...)
Lars Grahn in Tidskrift för Schack, 3/2001, pp. 168-175 (http://www.schack.se/tfsarkiv/histo...)
Not Just A Game. Video by Wendy van Wilgenburg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEv...)

Previous edition: Corus Group A (2000). Next: Corus Group A (2002). See also Corus Group B (2001) and Corus Reserve Group (2001).

Original collections: Game Collection: Wijk aan Zee Corus 2001 by User: suenteus po 147 and Game Collection: Corus Group A 2001 by User: Tabanus. Thanks to User: Paint My Dragon for paraphrased information from the CHESS magazine.