Recap of Tata Steel so far

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament has two main tournaments. They are played according to the 'round robin' system, whereby each competitor plays in turn against every other during the tournament. The Tata Steel Masters has 14 participants and the Tata Steel Challengers has 14 participants. Both groups start on January 10th 2015 and the last round is on January 25th. All rounds in Wijk aan Zee begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round on January 25th, which begins at 12.00 hours. The time control is 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.

Admission to the playing hall in Wijk aan Zee, Rotterdam and The Hague is free of charge

Recap of Wijk aan Zee, Masters Group:

Wijk aan Zee has something special about it. It is unclear if its the city, which is windy and cold, the atmosphere provided by the organizers, or the players that are chosen for this event. But for many fans it is the most exciting of the major round robins organized this year, and this edition has been nothing but a pleasure to watch. We have had ups, down, disasters and miraculous recoveries. Some players have found themselves luckless, while others seem to never run out of it. We give you a player by player review, from top to bottom, of their current situation and some of their highlights.

Masters standings after ten rounds

Jobava, Baadur

Jobava is a very unique player. His opening choices and his planning process seems to be unlike any other player at his strength. He takes something that you could see in a coffee house game and makes it work. Wonderfully. Well, at least he does sometimes. This tournament has not been kind to Jobava as he has seen his plans dashed and thrashed by his opposition. With only 1.5/10, he is losing an amazing amount of rating, but he can hope to salvage some of it with three consecutive wins - something that he is fully capable of doing.

Best Moment
Jobava's best moment of this tournament has to be his comeback win against Wojtaszek:

Saric, Ivan

No one before the tournament gave Saric any chance of taking the title with him back to Croatia, but with such a dazzling performance in last year's Challengers and an overall good year for him a lot was expected from this relatively young player.

Best Moment
Saric has one win in this event, and it was a (nearly miraculous) comeback against Jobava

Hou Yifan

The Women's World Champion has had a rough event. After having a fabulous year many thought this would be her breakthrough tournament, where she would finally surpass Judit Polgar's rating. She has had the chances to do that, but she has not taken advantage of them. The most important moments were her miss win against Saric, and against...Fabiano Caruana!

Best Moment
Despite not being able to finish him off, her game against Caruana was top-notch, outplaying the second rated player in the World with Black! What an exciting game! Both in time pressure and after the time control was reached. Hou Yifan missed a brilliant chance against Caruana:

Loek van Wely

Loek Van Wely is a player that can have a catastrophe over the board, or he can beat one of the top players in the World. Despite his low rating, he is a dangerous opponent. Even though his current score isn't bad at 3.5/10, he missed many good chances, most notably against Wojtaszek and Saric.

Best Moment
He did, however, cleanly sweep Hou Yifan. Van Wely mentioned she was unlucky to fall into one of the lines he had prepared, but he just played a great game:

Aronian, Levon

Levon Aronian is the defending Champion of Tata Steel, and last year after this tournament he was considered to be the "obvious" challenger to Magnus Carlsen's crown. However, only one year later, it is clear things are not quite the same. Aronian has not had a catastrophic year by any means, nor any absolutely horrible tournaments, heck - it's even hard to find a bad game from him. But somehow or another he has slowly dropped in the World Rankings. Currently, in the live ratings, he sits at eighth in the World.

Best Moment
Clearly his best game was his demolition of Jobava:

Radjabov, Teimour

Radjabov is an interesting player. Mangus Carlsen described him as somewhat who sometimes was ambitious, and sometimes simply wasn't. It's difficult to predict if he will go for an all out fight or if he will try to make the position as drawish as possible from the beginning. That doesn't change, of course, his sheer strength. This tournament he has simply been unable to get the positions he really enjoys.

Best Moment
Radjabov's cleanest game was probably his win against Wojtaszek

Wojtaszek, Radoslaw

Radoslaw Wojtaszek was poised to be this tournament Cinderella story. He started off beautifully, including wins against Carlsen and Caruana. However, he started losing some momentum. After two draws he lost twice in a row, and he will need a victory in round eleven to bring himself back up.

Best Moment
It's hard to choose which one was better, his victory over Carlsen or Caruana, but in my opinion it was the one against Caruana that takes the cake.

Ding Liren

Despite starting with a loss, Ding Liren recovered in spectacular fashion: a hat trick that put him at 3.0/4! He was very close to the leaders at all time; but his tournament, kind of like Wojtaszek's, didn't sustain the starting strength.

Best Moment
Like we have seen, Jobava seems to be a common target for "best moment":

Caruana, Fabiano

It's hard to say that anyone that has 6.0/10 in Tata Steel is having a "bad tournament"; however it doesn't feel as if Caruana is quite on par. He has had a couple of close calls, and although his tournament is decent, he isn't giving Carlsen the run for his money that a lot of people though he would.

Best Moment
My favorite game of his in this tournament so far was the one he played in round one against Ding Liren. Being honest, I thought he would start stampeding after it!

Giri, Anish

Giri is an interesting player. He has propelled himself in to the top-10 in the World, and by a wide margin. His massive 2789 live rating is very deserved; he shows that he has technique, class, understanding and above all confidence to play some of the best games of chess you can ever see. He seems to have some problems against certain players, but in general he has had a solid event and he has scored good wins.

Best Moment
Even though his technique at the end was not the best, his game against Ding Liren was simply awe-inspiring.

Ivanchuk, Vassily

Before Jobava came along, Ivanchuk was easily the most unpredictable player here. He could have a fantastic result, or he could crash and burn. His genius is unparalleled - I have had the pleasure of engaging in conversation with him and the amount of knowledge, calculation power, and sharpness in this person is simply amazing... and I'm not necessarily talking about chess!

Ivanchuk started phenomenally in this event, much better than what his rating forecasted. Despite his lagging a little in the last few rounds, his score is still great and he has shown everyone he definitely belongs in these elite events... as if there was any question about it.

Best Moment
It's hard to pick one game, but his victory against MVL really caused an impression on me

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime

MVL, the voracious chocolate-eating Frenchman, is one of the most outstanding players of the World. His chess is uncompromising, theoretical, interesting nad technical... all at the same time! His showing in Wijk aan Zee this year has been great, including fantastic wins against Giri, Hou Yifan, Saric and Ding Liren.

Best Moment
As a personal pick, his technical win over Anish Giri was his best effort in this event.

So, Wesley

Talk about a success story! Somehow, one way or another, Wesley So has catapulted himself to the top of the top of the World. He has even surpassed Hikaru Nakamura in the live ratings, taking what was once an untouchable spot as the top American player. If anyone had any doubts of how strong he is, this tournament should have cleared them up. He is currently in second place, and although there is a full point separating him with Carlsen, it is still possible that Wesley So somehow wins the event.

Best Moment
This is an easy pick; Wesley's opening preparation destroying Vassily Ivanchuk:

Carlsen, Magnus

The king. The magician. Magic Magnus has been on a roll this tournament. He started out absolutely atrociously, with a pale 1.0/3, but look at his streak! Six wins in a row and a draw with Ivanchuk in The Hague puts him in first place with a full point lead; but, as he said himself, a loss against MVL in the next few rounds could change absolutely everything.

Best Moment
Carlsen's 6-0 was a thing of beauty, almost comparable to Caruana's 7-0 start in the Sinquefield Cup. For me, his best effort was certainly against Caruana himself:

The action will continue tomorrow from Wijk aan Zee. The pairings are creating some interesting drama for the top spots in the last rounds, and you should not miss it! Join us on www.playchess.com as the last rounds of this exciting tournament unfold.

Photos by Alina l'Ami for the official website

Schedule and results - Masters group

Schedule and results - Challengers group

Venues

The tournament has a slight change this year. Most of the rounds will be played in the traditional De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee, but two of the rounds will be played elsewhere. Last year the tournament traveled to the National Museum in Amsterdam and the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven.

This year the fifth round will be held in De Rotterdam. De Rotterdam is a building on the Wilhelminapier in Rotterdam, designed by Rem Koolhaas in 1998.

Rotterdam is ready to host Tata Steel!

The tenth round will be played in the International Press Cnetre Niewuspoort in the Hague. Councillor Karsten Klein of The Hague had this to say: "The Hague is honored to be able to host the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2015 at the heart of the Dutch parliamentary democracy. Our city has a long history of international chess tournaments, a tradition which is continued in this manner. "

Commentary on Playchess

This being the first major event of the year, it is clear that we will be bringing you live commentary on our server www.playchess.com!

Links Official tournament site Master Games in PGN Challenger Games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.