Tata Steel Rd1: Caruana, Ivanchuk and MVL win

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. 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.

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

Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony was primarily done to welcome the players and for the drawing of lots, the classical system in which each player randomly chooses a number which will determine the pairing order of his/her opponents.

The Challengers section was done during a quick dinner:

Anish Giri with his girlfriend Sopiko Guramashvili

Can you count the amount of titled players in the picture?

Sam Shankland anxiously awaiting his turn to pick a number

Anne Haast is playing the Challengers section, but will have a
tough time against much higher rated opposition!

David Navara enjoying the ceremony

Superstars and dancers unite

A dance performance...

With of course Black to complement White

The players "picked" a dancer and they revealed what number was assigned to them.
Hou Yifan starts with 12, more Blacks than Whites.

The two reigning World Champions!

Masters Section

Daniel King shows the highlights of round 1

The traditional gong to ring the start of the game was rung by Nick Schilder, a famous Dutch singer-songwriter

Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ Van Wely, Loek
The Pirc Defense is not exactly the most common guest in top-level chess, however Van Wely is never afraid to risk! It paid off very well today as Radjabov's handling of it was quite dubious and Black obtained a playable position from the opening. Black's central mass compensated for his somewhat weakened kingside. After both players got into time trouble some exchanges happened and the game fizzled into a draw.

Ivanchuk, Vassily 1-0 Jobava, Baadur
What a blunder! After Jobava outplayed Ivanchuk it was clear that Black was in the driver's seat and putting pressure. A slight mistake cost him most of his advantage, but the endgame was surely drawn. Not checking things properly the following disaster happened:

Vachier Lagrave, Maxime 1-0 Hou Yifan
MVL's opening choice was somewhat questionable as Hou Yifan easily equalized in a French, Alekhine-Chatard Attack. However somewhere in the middle game the women's World Champion lost her grip on the game and it spiraled out of control. She lost a very unpleasant endgame rather quickly after a blunder and that was the end of the game.

Giri, Anish ½-½ Carlsen, Magnus
Definitely some interesting chess could have been developed from the strange version of the King's Indian that Carlsen chose, developing his knight on h6 instead of the usual f6. Giri found a way to keep a little bit of pressure but it might not have been the most accurate continuation. Carlsen neutralized this pressure and with an open d-file all of the major pieces came off, leading to a drawn pawn endgame.

Giri-Carlsen was the highest rated game of the day, but not the most exciting

Ding Liren 0-1 Caruana, Fabiano

Saric, Ivan ½-½ Aronian, Levon
A huge missed opportunity! Saric was outplaying Aronian when he let him off the hook:

So, Wesley ½-½ Wojtaszek, Radoslaw
A very topsy-turvy game. Wojtaszek's king was always prancing around the middle of the board, but White's rooks and knight just couldn't coordinate to deliver a fatal blow. Slowly Black's pawns crept down the middle of the board and in severe mutual time pressure Wojtaszek missed the following tactic:

Replay Masters Games

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Challengers Section

Erwin l'Ami obtained a draw against top-rated David Navara

Vladimir Potkin picking out his pairing number

The only decisive result today in the Challengers section was the very clean victory of Robin Van Kampen over Samuel Sevian. Ari Darle missed a huge chance of crushing Anne Haast and with dreadful technique he had to settle for a draw from an exchange up position. The rest of the games were tense fights, Sagar Shah brings us the highlights:

Replay Challengers Games

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Photos by Alina l'Ami from 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 Download Masters Games in PGN Download Challengers 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.