1/8/2017 – Only a few more days and World Champion Magnus Carlsen will play his first tournament game of 2017. On Saturday, January 14, 1.30pm local time, at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Carlsen will compete against players such as Sergey Karjakin, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Anish Giri, Richard Rapport, and Wei Yi to name just a few. Traditionally, Wijk aan Zee is one of the strongest and most interesting tournaments of the year, a real chess festival!
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Photos: Tata Steel Tournament
On January 14, 2017, the little Dutch village Wijk aan Zee, will again become the center of the chess world. Thousands of chess fans will travel to the "De Moriaan", the event hall in Wijk, to watch the world's best players in action and/or to take part in one of the several tournaments Wijk offers for players of all levels.
De Moriaan
"Steel" cake
But not all rounds of the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee are played in Wijk. The tournament travels and two of the 13 thirteen rounds of the A-group are played in a prestigious venue in other cities. This year these two "external" rounds will be played in the stadium of soccer club Feyenoord Rotterdam and in the Philharmonic Hall of Haarlem to present chess as sport and as art.
Soccer
Art
Top seed in Wijk aan Zee is World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen is a regular visitor in Wijk and plays for the 13th time - five times Carlsen has won the A-group, a record he shares with Vishy Anand. Carlsen is also the defending champion: in 2016 he won with 9.0/13, ahead of Fabiano Caruana.
Carlsen will meet an old and recent rival in Wijk: Sergey Karjakin, Carlsen's challenger in the World Championship match 2016 in New York who in December 2016 became World Blitz Champion in Doha, narrowly ahead of Carlsen.
Wesley So, one of the most successful players in 2016, will also be in Wijk, and he will try to start 2017 the way he ended 2016. In December 2016 So won the London Chess Classic and this also made him win the Grand Chess Tour 2016. In 2016 So also passed the 2800 Elo mark and with a current rating of 2808 he is number four in the world and second seed in Wijk.
Levon Aronian, Pentala Harikrishna, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Pavel Eljanov, Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Dmitri Andreikin will also hope to mix up the tournament, not to mention the young talents Richard Rapport and Wei Yi. As of January 2017 Rapport is too old to be a junior and this title went to Wei Yi. It's the second time the Chinese starts in the A-group in Wijk, but last year he showed only little youthful vigor: 11 of his 13 games ended in a draw.
Magnus Carlsen - Winner of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2016
Participants of the A-Tournament (Masters)
Name
Country
Rating
Position
GM
Carlsen, Magnus
NOR
2840
1
GM
So, Wesley
USA
2808
4
GM
Karjakin, Sergey
RUS
2785
8
GM
Aronian, Levon
ARM
2780
9
GM
Giri, Anish
NED
2773
10
GM
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
RUS
2767
11
GM
Harikrishna, Pentala
IND
2766
12
GM
Eljanov, Pavel
UKR
2755
15
GM
Wojtaszek, Radoslaw
POL
2750
18
GM
Andreikin, Dmitri
RUS
2736
24
GM
Wei, Yi
CHN
2704
38
GM
Rapport, Richard
HUN
2702
40
GM
Van Wely, Loek
NED
2695
49
GM
Adhiban, Baskaran
IND
2653
102
In the B-group Markus Ragger from Austria, who plays for the first time in Wijk, is top seed. In their invitational policy the organizers again followed the pattern of previous years: they invited a number of experienced tournament players (Smirin, Jones, Dobrov), a number of Dutch players (l'Ami, van Foreest, Bok), young talents (Xiong, Lu, Hansen, Grandelius, Tari) and two female players (Guramishvili, Lei Tingjie).
It will be interesting to see how the world's best girl, Lei Tingje, the young talent from the US, Jeffery Xiong, and the young Dutch master Jorden van Foreest will fare in this field. And who will win the tournament and qualify for the A-group in the Tata Steel tournament 2018?
Participants of the B-Tournament (Challengers)
Name
Country
Rating
GM
Ragger, Markus
AUT
2697
GM
Smirin, Ilia
ISR
2667
GM
Xiong, Jeffery
USA
2667
GM
Jones, Gawain
ENG
2665
GM
Grandelius, Nils
SWE
2642
GM
Lu, Shanglei
CHN
2612
GM
van Foreest, Jorden
NED
2612
GM
Bok, Benjamin
NED
2608
GM
l'Ami, Erwin
NED
2605
GM
Hansen, Eric
CAN
2603
GM
Tari, Aryan
NOR
2584
GM
Dobrov, Vladimir
RUS
2499
WGM
Tingjie, Lei
CHN
2467
IM
Guramishvili, Sopiko
GEO
2370
Time control 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves. Then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move.
Schedule
Both groups start on 14 January 2017. All rounds in Wijk aan Zee begin at 1.30pm, except for the last round on 29 Januaryy 2017, which begins at 12.00pm. Both rounds on the Chess On Tour days start at 2.00pm.
Johannes FischerJohannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".
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GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
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