Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2013 begins on Saturday

75. Tata Steel Chess Tournament

Live and in Color on Playchess.com

Though the last mates of 2012 were just given and the last complicated endgames were just won, the new season suddenly begins – as usual with an absolute highlight. This weekend the 75. Tata Steel Chess Tournament will turn the small fishing hamlet Wijk aan Zee into a veritable Mecca of chess. 39 top grandmasters and talents play in the three invitational tournament, and several hundred chess enthusiasts will play in the various open tournaments, turning this event, played in the community hall De Moriaan, into a huge chess festival.

If you do not have the opportunity to pilgrimage to Wijk, you are invited to follow the games live on the playchess.com server – and you will definitely see a lot of top level chess. A large number of first class commentators will analyze and commentate the games: Daniel King, Yasser Seirawan, Maurice Ashley and Lawrence Trent. And it's all free of charge for premium members!

Players at the opening ceremony on Friday

The tournament has three main GM groups, which play round robin tournaments (each competitor plays in turn against every other in the same group). All three groups have 14 players each and start on January 12th. All rounds begin at 13.30 hours (you can check your local time here), except for the last round on January 27th, which begins at 12.00 hours. There are rest days: on January 16th, 21st, and 24th.

Rate of play: For all three groups the rate of play is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and finally 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30 seconds/move increment starting with the first move of the game.

Schedule of Grandmaster Group A

Of course, Magnus Carlsen is top favorite to win the tournament. The World's Number One was in excellent form at the Chess Classic in London, not only winning the tournament but also setting a new Elo record of 2861. However, things in Wijk have never been easy for the Norwegian and in 2011 and 2010 he did not win the tournament but had to concede first place to Hikaru Nakamura and Levon Aronian.

A lot of people will also be curious to see how the recently dethroned former Women's World Champion Yifan Hou, who gives her debut in the A-tournament, will perform in Wijk.

Schedule of Grandmaster Group B

German chess fans will be glad about the participation of Arkadij Naiditsch who is also the top seed in group B. His closest rivals are Sergei Movsesian and Romain Edouard. Robin van Kampen represents the Dutch juniors, Richard Rapport the international young talents, while Jan Timman appears as chess legend. However, it comes as a slight surprise that this year no woman are taking part in the B-tournament.

Schedule of Grandmaster Group C

Traditionally, the C-tournament is the place where seasoned grandmasters, veterans and young talents meet. The youngest participant is 14-year old U-18 World Champion Alexandra Goryachkina.

Garry Kasparov honors Alexandra Goryachkina with the gold medal. Vice-World
Champion Lisa Schut (middle) is also Playing in the C-tournament.

Commentators on the Playchess Server

There will be full broadcast of all games on the official site and on the Playchess server, which will provide live audio commentary of the most interesting games (free for Premium members) starting at 15:00h for each round, 14:00h for the final round.

GM Daniel King analyzes Aronian-Nakamura in his round one wrap-up in 2012

Our commentators as authors

Maurice Ashley US-Grandmaster Maurice Ashley has a unique way to combine chess and entertainment. He has the knack to make chess training light and easy – and yet to teach a lot. In the third volume of his small series "What Grandmasters Don't See" Ashley summarizes how to learn from mistakes others made, and inspires independent thinking with a number of tests. Maurice Ashley: What Grandmasters Don't See: Vol. 3: Summary and Test All DVDs by Maurice Ashley in the ChessBase Shop
Yasser Seirawan Yasser Seirawan is a master story teller. In his prime he also belonged to the chess world's elite and stood up to the very best. On this DVD the US Grandmaster presents a selection of his best games while telling a number of entertaining stories. Yasser Seirawan: My best games
Lawrence Trent On this DVD the International Master Lawrence Trent shows the most important games of the Smith-Morra gambit (1.e4 c5 2.d4) in his entertaining fresh-faced fashion. With the Smith-Morra gambit White forces Black right from the start to defend while White has the initiative and calls the shots. Lawrence Trent: The Smith-Morra-Gambit
Daniel King With his Powerplay series, the 17. volume of which just appeared, the English grandmaster set a high standard. In this series King presented various chess topics and the basic techniques, motives, and ideas connected to them in an easy and entertaining way. As King is fluent in German, his DVDs appear both in English and German. Daniel King: Powerplay 17: Attack with 1.e4 All DVDs by Daniel King in the ChessBase Shop
Karsten Müller With a huge number of publications, books and DVDs about the endgame, Karsten Müller can be considered to be the legitimate successor of endgame "guru" Yury Averbakh. Seeing Karsten talk about endgames you quickly realize: the grandmaster from Hamburg loves the subject and infects his audience with his enthusiam. Dr. Karsten Müller: Chess Endgames 11 – Rook against Bishop

Links

• Official web site
• ChessBase: Wijk 2013
• ChessBase: Wijk 2012 (winner Levon Aronian)
• ChessBase: Wijk 2011 (winner Hikaru Nakamura)
• ChessBase: Wijk 2010 (winner: Magnus Carlsen)
• ChessBase: Wijk 2009 (winner: Sergey Karjakin)
• ChessBase: Wijk 2008 (winners: Aronian, Carlsen)
• ChessBase: Wijk 2007 (winners: Aronian, Topalov, Radjabov)
• ChessBase: Wijk 2006 (winners: Anand, Topalov)
• ChessBase: Wijk 2005 (winner: Peter Leko)
• ChessBase: Wijk 2004 (winner: Viswanathan Anand)
• Where is Wijk aan Zee?