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A quote attributed to Bent Larsen captures the significance and tradition of what's now known as the Tata Steel Chess Tournament: "Normal people should see Naples before they die, but the great chess masters have to win the Wijk aan Zee tournament first of all".
Earlier this week fans of Anish Giri had a chance to get up close and personal in Hilversum as he and tournament evangelist IM Hans Böhm made an appearance, and also played some casual games, at an event at the "Foodhall Mout" building on the town's main square. After the chess session, Giri and Böhm signed autographs and then Anish went home to continue the preparations for the super-tournament that will opens tomorrow in Wijk aan Zee. The first round will be played on Saturday in both in the Masters and Challengers groups.
Larsen himself played five times, winning twice | Photo: Tata Steel Chess
The tournament has taken over the nickname "the Wimbledon of chess" since the demise of the Linares tournament, which was last held in 2010. With 13 rounds, the Tata Steel Chess is one of the largest and toughest in the world and routinely attracts the cream of international chess elite. This year, the 80th edition is extra strong!
World Champion Magnus Carlsen and former world champions Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, and former Women's World Champion Hou Yifan, will all participate this year. Both Carlsen and Anand have won the tournament five times. Other familiar faces from the world's elite include: Giri, Wesley So (the defending champion), Fabiano Caruana and Sergey Karjakin.
Master Class Vol.8: Magnus Carlsen
Scarcely any world champion has managed to captivate chess lovers to the extent Carlsen has. The enormously talented Norwegian hasn't been systematically trained within the structures of a major chess-playing nation such as Russia, the Ukraine or China.
The schedule for the 80th Tata Steel Chess runs from January 12th to 28th, but not all rounds will be held in Wijk aan Zee; the recent tradition of holding two rounds of the Masters group "on tour" in larger Dutch cities continues, with this year's lucky venues being the "Beeld en Geluid" building in Hilversum (which is "the" media city in the Netherlands) on January 17th and the Academiegebouw building ("Academy Building") of the University of Groningen on January 24th.
All rounds, including those of Hilversum and Groningen, are be freely accessible to the public, and the large crowds which regularly gather to watch the grandmasters play is one of the hallmarks of this storied tournament.
As we reported in December, Maxim Matlakov will be making his Wijk aan Zee debut. The 26-year-old is number 23 in the world ranking. The biggest success of his career so far has been his triumph in the 2017 European Individual Championship in Minsk. The last participant to be announced for the Challenger's group is Matlakov's compatriot Dmitry Gordievsky (21 years old), who is not yet well known in the West. He achieved the Grandmaster title just a few months ago and was the winner of the prestigious Moscow Open ahead of players like Gata Kamsky, Denis Khismatullin and Alexander Grachev.
The winner of the Challengers group qualifies to the Masters in 2019. Gawain Jones tied with Markus Ragger on 9 / 13 in the 2018 Challengers tournament, but narrowly claimed the spot on tiebreak score. Jones just celebrated his 30th birthday and his debut in the Masters group will be his toughest challenge to-date.
Home for a few days just before heading to @tatasteelchess. Had the best weekend filled with family, friends, drinks and so much laughter! Thanks everyone for coming and @GMGawain your 30th birthday celebrations are finally over. Don't expect this every year pic.twitter.com/D6sWE4A0wS
— Sue Maroroa (@WIM_Maroroa) January 9, 2018
Gawain has been married to WIM Sue Maroroa since 2012
| Name | FED | Elo | World rank |
| Magnus Carlsen | Norway | 2834 | 1 |
| Fabiano Caruana | USA | 2811 | 2 |
| Shakhriyar Mamedyarov | Azerbaijan | 2804 | 3 |
| Wesley So | USA | 2792 | 6 |
| Vladimir Kramnik | Russia | 2787 | 7 |
| Peter Svidler | Russia | 2768 | 10 |
| Viswanathan Anand | India | 2767 | 11 |
| Sergey Karjakin | Russia | 2753 | 14 |
| Anish Giri | Netherlands | 2752 | 15 |
| Wei Yi | China | 2743 | 22 |
| Maxim Matlakov | Russia | 2718 | 32 |
| Hou Yifan | China | 2680 | 64 |
| Adhiban Baskaran | India | 2655 | 96 |
| Gawain Jones | England | 2640 | 127 |
| Name | FED | Elo | Born |
| Vidit Gujrathi | India | 2718 | 1994 |
| Bassem Amin | Egypt | 2693 | 1988 |
| Michal Krasenkow | Poland | 2671 | 1963 |
| Anton Korobov | Ukraine | 2652 | 1985 |
| Matthias Blübaum | Germany | 2640 | 1997 |
| Erwin l´Ami | Netherlands | 2634 | 1985 |
| Jeffery Xiong | USA | 2634 | 2000 |
| Jorden van Foreest | Netherlands | 2629 | 1999 |
| Dmitry Gordievsky | Russia | 2622 | 1996 |
| Benjamin Bok | Netherlands | 2607 | 1995 |
| Aryan Tari | Norway | 2599 | 1999 |
| Harika Dronavalli | India | 2497 | 1991 |
| Olga Girya | Russia | 2489 | 1991 |
| Lucas van Foreest | Netherlands | 2481 | 2001 |
Ratings as of January 1, 2018 | Source: FIDE
On this DVD Vladimir Kramnik retraces his career from talented schoolboy to World Champion in 2006. With humour and charm he describes his first successes, what it meant to be part of the Russian Gold Medal team at the Olympiad, and how he undertook the Herculean task of beating his former mentor and teacher Garry Kasparov.
We'll be re-capping each day's action with a live webcast at 21:00 CET (3pm EST) from a variety of familiar ChessBase contributors:
| 13. Jan | Round 1 | Yannick Pelletier |
| 14. Jan | Round 2 | Daniel King |
| 15. Jan | Round 3 | Simon Williams |
| 16. Jan | Round 4 | Daniel King |
| 17. Jan | Round 5 | Simon Williams |
| 18. Jan | Rest day | |
| 19. Jan | Round 6 | Simon Williams |
| 20. Jan | Round 7 | Daniel King |
| 21. Jan | Round 8 | Yannick Pelletier |
| 22. Jan | Rest day 2 | |
| 23. Jan | Round 9 | Lawrence Trent |
| 24. Jan | Round 10 | Yannick Pelletier |
| 25. Jan | Rest day 3 | |
| 26. Jan | Round 11 | Daniel King |
| 27. Jan | Round 12 | Lawrence Trent |
| 28. Jan | Round 13 | Daniel King |
GM Daniel King has already recorded a preview of the tournament for ChessBase Videos:
You'll find all round-up shows in a special section
The first DVD with videos from Anand's chess career reflects the very beginning of that career and goes as far as 1999. It starts with his memories of how he first learned chess and shows his first great games (including those from the 1984 WCh for juniors). The high point of his early developmental phase was the winning of the 1987 WCh for juniors. After that, things continue in quick succession: the first victories over Kasparov, WCh candidate in both the FIDE and PCA cycles and the high point of the WCh match against Kasparov in 1995.
Running time: 3:48 hours
All the broadcasts on Playchess.com at a glance (guide)
