Wijk aan Zee 2013: Tata Steel Chess Super-GM lineup

Information and schedule

This event starts with an opening ceremony on Friday January 11th. The first round is played on Saturday 12th, the last on Sunday, January 27th, 2013. The venue is as usual the 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 was renamed accordingly.

Wijk aan Zee (pronounced vyke ahn zeh – to rhyme with "like 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 Tata Steel Chess 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.

History

The event has been held since 1938, when it was a four-player round robin over three days. The sponsor was Hoogoven and the venue Beverwijk, a town close to Wijk, where many players today take their dinner. From 1940 onwards Max Euwe participated, but in 1942 the tournament turned into a six-player event, and in 1943 into an eight-player event. The final year of WWII, 1945, was the only time the tournament was not staged. As from 1946 it was 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 is the way it stayed, with some exceptions in 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 2013

Grandmaster Group A

The average rating in Group A is 22.5 points lower that in the previous year, and the category has dropped from 21 to 20. On the other hand the tournament has some very interesting new players, including the former Women's World Champion Hou Yifan from China, who is making her debut here.

Grandmaster Group B

This group is considerably stronger than last year, with the average rating climbing by 24.5 points and the category from 15 to 16. Unfortunately there are no female players in this section – last year there were three.

Grandmaster Group C

In 2009 this group had an average rating of 2455, in 2010 it climbed to 2507, and in 2012 it was 2454. This year the average is the lowest in years, but the players also the most interesting, with a number of fresh young faces, like...

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.

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

Links

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