1/27/2019 – The 81st Tata Steel Chess Tournament takes place from January 12th to 27th in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands (and two "on tour" locations). The "Masters" has an average Elo of 2753. The "Challengers" weighs in at 2582. Both are 14-player round-robin tournaments. Round-up show live at 20:00 UTC (21:00 CET, 3:00 PM EST) Live commentary by IMs Sopiko Guramishvili and GM Robert Hess from 12:30 UTC (13:30 CET, 7:30 am EST) | Photo: TataSteelChess.com
new: ChessBase Magazine 225
Chess Festival Prague 2025 with analyses by Aravindh, Giri, Gurel, Navara and others. ‘Special’: 27 highly entertaining miniatures. Opening videos by Werle, King and Ris. 10 opening articles with new repertoire ideas and much more. ChessBase Magazine offers first-class training material for club players and professionals! World-class players analyse their brilliant games and explain the ideas behind the moves. Opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in tactics, strategy and endgames show you the tricks and techniques you need to be a successful tournament player! Available as a direct download (incl. booklet as pdf file) or booklet with download key by post. Included in delivery: ChessBase Magazine #225 as “ChessBase Book” for iPad, tablet, Mac etc.!
Winning starts with what you know The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Carlsen made a 30-move draw with black against Anish Giri, winning his record-extending seventh Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Giri takes clear second.
In the Challengers, Vladislav Kovalev impressively won by a 1½ point margin as both of his closest pursuers lost their final round games.
"If you're not nervous before such a game, you're not human."
Giri is the runner-up behind Carlsen for the second year in a row
Final standings - Masters
Games and commentary
Players receive 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus 30 seconds bonus per move starting from move one.
ChessBase will provide daily video round-up shows by a variety of commentators (see Schedule below).
At the airport, in the hotel or at home on your couch: with the new ChessBase you always have access to the whole ChessBase world: the new ChessBase video library, tactics server, opening training App, the live database with eight million games, Let’s Check and web access to playchess.com
Commentary by IM Sopiko Guramishvili and GM Robert Hess
Final standings - Challengers
Results of Round 13
A 14-player single round-robin means each player plays every other once for 13 rounds in all. The drawing of lots determines the colours for each game.
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.
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 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
Schedule
Day
Date
Round
Round-up show
Saturday
January 12
1
IM Merijn van Delft
Sunday
January 13
2
GM Daniel King
Monday
January 14
3
GM Daniel King
Tuesday
January 15
4
GM Daniel King
Wednesday
January 16
5
GM Daniel King
Friday
January 18
6
IM Merijn van Delft
Saturday
January 19
7
GM Daniel King
Sunday
January 20
8
GM Yannick Pelletier
Tuesday
January 22
9
GM Daniel King
Wednesday
January 23
10
IM Lawrence Trent
Friday
January 25
11
GM Yannick Pelletier
Saturday
January 26
12
GM Yannick Pelletier
Sunday
January 27
13
GM Yannick Pelletier
All rounds in Wijk aan Zee start at 13:30 CET (12:30 UTC, 7:30 EST), except the last round, which starts at 12.00. The Chess-on-Tour rounds (5 and 10 Masters-only) start at 14:00 CET.
My point was not about mistakes but just recognizing that top American players don't seem to spend time on or value theoretical endings. There is no excuse for a 2700 plus player like Shankland to miss that or for a 2800 plus player like Caruana to miss a win against Duda, both of which were in Dvoretsky's book. They are wicked strong but imagine how strong they'd be if they spent a comparable amount of time on endgame theory as on the Sicilian Defense.
chessdrummer 1/28/2019 06:37
One can even make the argument that Giri actually allowed the draw with b6 in the end. He was born in Russia and grew up in the Netherlands. Does that mean there is a flaw on those systems? No... it may be just a flaw in that particular game. To say it's "chess culture" would deflect the blame. I don't think chess culture would prevent that any more than it would prevent you from having any number of lapses at the board.
tomohawk 1/28/2019 02:54
I think US chess is not well served by the five-second delay that so many tournaments have there.
PEB216 1/28/2019 02:50
When Sam Shankland resigned a drawn ending against Anish Giri, I was concerned that this would have a detrimental impact on his remaining games. In an interview, he admitted that this was the most distressing moment in his chess career, but he would not let it curtail his fighting spirit. And, like the outstanding player he is, he won his next two games against Nepomniachi and Kramnik. Such resolve is deserving of praise!
Alf23 1/28/2019 12:48
What ever is happened to Big Vlad?, We all need you to get back in good shape. My best desire.
Ajeeb007 1/28/2019 12:14
Daniel Miller may actually be correct. In his interview Shankland attributed his failure to recognize the draw to a matter of chess culture.
chessdrummer 1/27/2019 07:38
Daniel Miller... Perhaps you recognized the draw, but you didn't have your clock running and hadn't been sitting at the board for six hours. I'm sure you have seen worse mistakes made by 2700s. No, they don't have all the endings memorized. A couple of elite players failed to win the Q vs. R ending. Kramnik slept mate in one. Carlsen hangs pieces sometimes. It won't be the first instance where a player misjudges nor the last. You would think every master level player knows the bishop and knight mate, but they don't. Another 2500 level player recently failed to do it. As for American players, you're a bit too dismissive of the recent results of U.S. players. The results have been fantastic. Players miss wins as we have seen in elite chess. You must also notice the same weaknesses in other players, yes? After all, this is not Alpha Zero playing and that's why we like it. If you want that, then computer chess is an alternative to watch.
Air Bubble 1/27/2019 12:16
Fischer would say this: the game Giri vs Shankland was pre arranged...FIDE or Holland Government paid tons of dollars for letting their boy Giri have a high score...?? or probably Fischer was all wrong...and hallucinated himself too much?
JWD11 1/25/2019 09:35
I know it of course, present grandmasters play endings considerably more faintly than the grandmasters of seventieth years. They do not have the elementary notion often. But if or I dream ?? Shankland - like the child in the fog - broke the game in the very very very easily drawn position, then some horror. Paranoia. Candidates on masters thirty years ago played such endings better than the present elite...
Daniel Miller 1/25/2019 06:23
I'm American, and I've noticed a glaring weakness in America's top players. From Caruana missing a book win in RB v. R against Duda last year and refusing to play on in RN v. R against Wesley So to this horrendous embarassment for Sam Shankland. I'm 2300 and I immediately recognized the Shankland draw from Dvoretsky's endgame manual. It is incredible that 2700 plus players don't have every position in that book memorized. It is apparent that American players don't value memorizing book endings. This says a lot about how Shankland approaches chess. It is a shame.
Air Bubble 1/23/2019 11:25
Carlsen is much better than Giri...even they are at the upper lign of the table..
there is only one player that can catch Carlsen and that is Kasparov...
macauley 1/22/2019 02:07
@DarYahoo - We've taken some steps to improve the page load on this post. You can find the live games for today up top, and all games down below. You can also click on any result in the cross table to be taken directly to that game via live.chessbase.com
DarYahoo 1/22/2019 11:00
What is happening to the Chessbase.com page? it's so slow to charge pages and the coverage is so messy, not really clear how to replay the correct games of the day...very confusing!
Air Bubble 1/20/2019 10:56
Will this be the last tournament of Kramnik, before he retires?
Carlsen is on a full mission, as well as Anand.
I wonder if Nepomniatchi will collapse again like in his blitz world championship..
Daniel Miller 1/14/2019 08:23
Its too big of a coincidence that Giri plays Carlsen in the final round. Must have been orchestrated by the organizers.
Jacob woge 1/14/2019 01:19
Very good coverage by Trent&Rudolf. Borderline banter included. “Pokkers” is Danish as well as dutch. Cuss word referring to smallpox and syphilis. Should any of the two be reading this.
Throughout the video course, Sasikran shows various examples from his career to explain sacrifices for initiative, an attack, a better pawn structure and much more.
In this insightful video course, Grandmaster David Navara shares practical advice on when to calculate deeply in a position — and just as importantly, when not to.
The Trompowsky is especially suited for faster time controls as you don‘t have to memorise endless lines of theory, and you push your opponent out of their comfort zone after your second move.
Trompowsky Powerbook 2025 is based on 53,000 computer games from the engine room of playchess.com as well as 49,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Trompowsky Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 8727 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 316 are annotated.
2025 European Championship with a German double victory and analyses by Bluebaum, Svane, Rodshtein, Yuffa, Navara and many more. Opening videos by Engel, King and Marin. Training sections “The Fortress”, “The Trap” and “Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" etc.
Powerbook based on more than 618 000 games in which White already sidesteps the main variations of the Sicilian on move 2.
€9.90
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.
Pop-up for detailed settings
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies, analysis cookies and marketing cookies. You can decide which cookies to use by selecting the appropriate options below. Please note that your selection may affect the functionality of the service. Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Technically required cookies
Technically required cookies: so that you can navigate and use the basic functions and store preferences.
Analysis Cookies
To help us determine how visitors interact with our website to improve the user experience.
Marketing-Cookies
To help us offer and evaluate relevant content and interesting and appropriate advertisement.