Wijk aan Zee: Tata Steel tournament breaks records

Information and schedule

This event starts with an opening ceremony on Friday January 13th. The first round is played on Saturday 14th, the last on Sunday, January 29th, 2012. The venue is as usual the traditional De Moriaan Center in Wijk aan Zee. The tournament has taken place since 1938 and was known as the Corus Chess Tournament. The Indian company Tata Steel bought Corus (for US $7.6 billion) in 2006 and the chess event way renamed accordingly.

Wijk aan Zee (pronounced vyke ahn zeh – to rhyme with "bike on say") is a small wind-swept town on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk in the province of North Holland of the Netherlands.

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The tournament takes place in three Grandmaster Groups, with a number of amateur events being held at the same time. The three Grandmaster tournaments have 14 players each and are full round robins (each competitor plays against every other).

History

The event has been held since 1938, when it was a four-player round robin played on three days. The sponsor was Hoogoven and the venue Beverwijk, a town close to Wijk where many players today take their dinner. From 1940 on Max Euwe participated, but the tournament, which in 1942 turned into a six player event, and in 1943 to eight. The final year of WWII, 1945, was the only time the tournament was not staged. From 1946 it becames a ten-player event, with some exceptions: 12 players in 1953, 18 in 1963, and then 16 players from 1964 onwards. In 1980 the first 14-player tournament was held (and won by Walter Brown and Yasser Seirawan), and that's the way it stayed, with some exceptions from 1993-1995. From 1996 onwards it reverted to fourteen players and has stayed that way until today. In 1968 it moved to Wijk aan Zee, and in 2000 it was renamed Corus, after the main sponsor. You can click on any of the tournaments listed below for participants, results, cross tables, etc.

In the lists below you can also click the players for full information

You will find full statistics for all players in all tournaments here.

Participants of Tata Steel 2012

Grandmaster Group A

The average rating in Group A is twelve points higher that in the previous year, and the category has climbed from 20 to 21, making it the strongest in Wijk's history. The world's highest ranked player, Magnus Carlsen, is there, as are number three, Levon Aronian, and 5-7. Missing, of course, are the world's number two and four, Anand and Kramnik, but the organisers can be rightfully proud that ten of the top fifteen players are participating. Bulgarian GM Veseiln Topalov, who has been playing very little since his failed World Championship title challenge (to Viswanathan Anand in Sofia last April/May), comes back big time by accepting the invitation this this tournament. Interestingly Anand's 2012 challenger Boris Gelfand is also playing. Hikaru Nakamura, the winner of last year's edition, will of course also be in Wijk aan Zee.

Grandmaster Group B

This group is considerably weaker than last year, the average rating dropping by 62 points and the category from 17 to 14. But there are some quite interesting players participating: GM Illya Nyzhnyk, the 15-year-old boy wonder, Jan Timman, the chess legend coming out of semi-retirement, and three ladies: world number five Kateryna Lahno of Ukrain, reigning European champion Viktorija Cmilyte of Lithuania and Harika Dronavalli of India, who is just 20 years old. All three carry full-blown grandmaster titles.

Grandmaster Group C

In 2009 this group had an average rating of 2455, in 2010 it climbed to 2507, and now it is back to 2455 (for 13 players – the winner of the Cultural Village Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, to be held from November 21 to 30 November, will join them). Five ladies are playing, including the 17-year-old Lisa Schut and 18-year-old Anne Haast. This is a very encouraging trend – last year there were just two females in all three categories, this time eight! However, we should mention that 37-year-old comeback kid Matthew Sadler is the player to watch.

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.

Location: The tournament takes place in the De Moriaan Community Centre (Dorpsduinen 4, 1949 EG Wijk aan Zee). There is running commentary on the games of the Grandmaster Groups in a special Chess Pavilion, on the Village Green in Wijk aan Zee (one minute walk from De Moriaan).

Schedule (playing days)

Games begin at 13:30h local time (CET), except for the last round on January 29th, which begins at 12:00h. There are three rest days, on January 18th, 23th, and 26th.

Commentary

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.

Links

• Official web site
• Where is Wijk aan Zee?
• 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)