Tata Steel 2014 Wijk aan Zee

[Mick Norris]

http://www.theweekinchess.com/chessnews ... ament-2014

Interesting field, although we already knew Kramnik wouldn't play - will be interesting to see who the 12th player will be

[Roger de Coverly]

Interesting field, although we already knew Kramnik wouldn't play - will be interesting to see who the 12th player will be

They've had to downgrade the size. Sections are 12 players rather than 14 and they've scrapped the C Group. They also go on tour for a couple of rounds to a Museum and University.

http://www.chessvibes.com/tata-steel-20 ... new-venues

[Mick Norris]

I think the B group is 14 players as usual

[Andrew Bak]

The Official Website still says there will be three round-robin groups in the "main tournament".

[Mick Norris]

Schedule

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 Grandmaster group A has 12 players and the Grandmaster group B has 14 players. Both groups start on January 11th 2014. All rounds begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round on January 26th, which begins at 12.00 hours.

Time control

The time control is: 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move.

Details about the Amateur events here in case anyone fancies going
http://www.tatasteelchess.com/amateurs/events2013

[Chris Rice]

Thanks Mick for the link to the amateur events. Some of the requirements look quite odd. For example:

Weekend-three-round event (11, 12, 13 January); max. 520 participants (Never heard of one of these!)

Rate of play: 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by 25* minutes extra time p.p. to finish the game, with an increment of 5 seconds per move in this period. (Note: *30 minutes when mechanical clocks are used, without increment per move)

Entrance fee, which has to be paid on the obligatory registration on 11 January: € 20,- (€ 25,- for players who are not a member of one of the FIDE federations.)

Nine-round event (18 - 27 January); max. 640 participants

Rate of play: 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by 55* minutes extra time p.p. to finish the game, with an increment of 5 seconds per move in this period. (Note: *60 minutes when mechanical clocks are used, without increment per move; this same rate of play will be used if a 'norm group' would be possible.)

Entrance fee, which has to be paid on the obligatory registration on 18 January: € 40,- (* € 45,- for players who are not a member of one of the FIDE federations.) Entry is not (yet) possible. When entry is possible a link to the entry form will be placed here.

In the three- and nine-round-events the following will apply:

Any player who, for the first time in a game, arrives at the chessboard after more than one hour after the scheduled time to start, will lose the game unless the arbiter has a good reason to lengthen the term. Smoking, consumption of alcoholic drinks, and the use of mobile phones are prohibited in the playing rooms. (So I guess you can turn up more than an hour late if you can come up with a good excuse?)

Rapid tournament (19 and 20 January); max. 100 participants

1st - 4th round : 19 January 12:30 - 18:00 hours
5th - 7th round : 20 January 12:30 - 16:30 hours
Prize giving : 20 January appr. 16:30 hours

Rate of play: 30 minutes p.p. for the entire game; arriving late at the chess board doesn't lead to an immediate loss because of this reason. (u can turn up 2 minutes before your flag goes)

Prizes

There are money prizes in all events. Distribution of the prizes will stop thirty minutes after the last round in the event has finished. Afterwards prizes will not be paid anymore. (So don't try and leave the venue if you have won anything!)

[Roger de Coverly]

Thanks Mick for the link to the amateur events. Some of the requirements look quite odd.

Most of the events are all play alls. Only the rapidplay is a Swiss. They must assume everyone knows this as it isn't mentioned.
Quads (four player APAs) are popular in the USA, but before the days of Swiss tournaments, UK tournaments would regard six players as a minimum number.

[Mick Norris]

Pentala Harikrishna is the 12th player in the A group

http://www.tatasteelchess.com/

Name Country Rating Position
GM Aronian, Levon ARM 2803 2
GM Nakamura, Hikaru USA 2786 4
GM Caruana, Fabiano ITA 2782 7
GM Gelfand, Boris ISR 2777 8
GM Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2756 12
GM Dominguez, Leinier CUB 2754 14
GM Naiditsch, Arkadij GER 2737 18
GM Giri, Anish NED 2734 20
GM So, Wesley PHL 2719 30
GM Harikrishna, Pentala IND 2708 42
GM Rapport, Richard HUN 2687 58
GM van Wely, Loek NED 2678 69

Average rating : 2743
Category : 20
FIDE-ratings of December 2013

[Colin Patterson]

I believe round 1 of the A Group starts today, for those keen on following this event.

[JustinHorton]

Here's some clown making a fool of himself with an unwise prediction.

[Matthew Turner]

There don't appear to be any Afek challenges this year. I have always really enjoyed them in the past.

[John Moore]

Kaydon Troff is a new name to me and to my spell checker. 15 year old with an elo rating of 2457!

His pic on the site is a bit odd looking - looks like he's been polished recently.

The other pic I liked was Reinderman - he's probably the guy who's pinched all Tim Spanton's elo points.

[Alex Holowczak]

The other pic I liked was Reinderman

Presumably he's back to enjoying chess after the stress of providing Santa with suitable animals for Christmas Eve.

[Colin S Crouch]

Judging by the forum comments, there is not any wild interest in the chess played here at Wijk aan Zee, or today Amsterdam. It is as though a tournament without Carlsen is not seen as interesting. I am sure though the chess public will soon warm up to what could be one of the most interesting events of the year. Obviously, the question not just who will win the tournament, but also who is most likely to make a direct challenge to Carlsen's throne, either this year or before too long. With Aronian, Caruana, Giri, So, Nakamura, and Karjakin playing, we have an excellent opportunity to assess who is most likely to trouble Carlsen. So far, the first three rounds have been tight, nobody scoring more than +1, and six being equal first. But what about today?

When I had written the earlier stuff, six straight draws would have been a distinct possibility, some of the games ending up with symmetrical pawn structurs or otherwise level. The chess battle continues into the fourth hour however.
Karjakin, not for the first time, showed that the doubled c-pawsn the Winawer, plus the need to protect the c2 pawn with Ra2, is not as bad as it looked. Rapport lost control of the position, and joined the +1 group.
At the time of writing, Aronian is now in the lead, Nakamura making a big mistake on move 40 in a minor piece ending. He had to decide which side to move his king – whether to protect the a5 pawn or the h5 pawn. He played passively. He needed to counter-attack, to poke one of White's pawns.
But, writing after the end of the last game, perhap the more interesting encounter, a hundred moves of it, was Domingez Pereez's win against Caruna in a tense bishop ending. Dominguez had by far the more active king and bishop, but all his pieces were doubled and/or isolated.
Caruana is a spectacularly good player, but, as his +2-2 shows, to reach the very top, he needs somehow. to cut down hiss number of losses.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I have been following the tournament, but don't really have any particular horse in the race (not really rooting for anyone in particular to win). It would be nice to see some of the higher rated players behind Aronain make a break to get their rating over 2800 and start to try and establish themselves alongside Aronian as a clear challenger to Carlsen by rating.

PS. Nice to see the most recent round take place at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. I wonder what sort of museums or similar places in London (or anywhere in the UK) would be on a wishlist of places to hold a round of a top international chess tournament in?