Wijk aan Zee 9th- 25th January 2015

[Mick Norris]

Masters A Group players and World Ranking in October: Magnus Carlsen (1), Fabiano Caruana (2), Levon Aronian (5), Anish Giri (7), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (13), Wesley So (14) Ding Liren (22) Vasily Ivanchuk (24) Teimour Radjabov (25) Ivan Saric (66) Hou Yifan (72) and Loek van Wely (85).

http://www.theweekinchess.com/chessnews ... sters-2015

2 players to be added to A group: B group including Van Kampen to be announced in due course

[MJMcCready]

Nice to see Hou Yifan in the A group, I hope she does well.

[Mick Norris]

Participants of Tata Steel Masters

Name Country Rating Position
GM Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2862 1
GM Caruana, Fabiano ITA 2820 2
GM Aronian, Levon ARM 2797 6
GM Giri, Anish NED 2784 7
GM So, Wesley USA 2762 10
GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA 2757 13
GM Wojtaszek, Radoslaw POL 2744 15
GM Radjabov, Teimour AZE 2734 20
GM Ding, Liren CHN 2732 22
GM Jobava, Baadur GEO 2727 26
GM Ivanchuk, Vasil UKR 2715 33
GM Hou, Yifan CHN 2673 70
GM Van Wely, Loek NED 2667 81
GM Saric, Ivan CRO 2666 82

Average rating : 2746
Category : 20
FIDE-ratings of January 2015

[Mick Norris]

Participants of Tata Steel Challengers

Name Country Rating
GM Navara, David CZE 2729
GM Wei, Yi CHN 2675
GM Shankland, Sam USA 2652
GM Van Kampen, Robin NED 2615
GM l' Ami, Erwin NED 2613
GM Potkin, Vladimir RUS 2608
GM Saleh, Salem UAE 2603
GM Timman, Jan NED 2593
GM Michiels, Bart BEL 2563
GM Gunina, Valentina RUS 2538
GM Klein, David NED 2517
IM Sevian, Samuel USA 2511
WIM Haast, Anne NED 2352
IM Dale, Ari AUS 2291

Average rating : 2561
Category : 13
FIDE-ratings of January 2015

[Jonathan Rogers]

Nice to see Hou Yifan in the A group, I hope she does well.

Yes, though she has played there before - she played the Ponziani v Carlsen!

The people's choice has to be Jobava, though?

[Steven DuCharme]

Play starts on January 10

[Chris Rice]

Another preview of Wijk aan Zee on ChessBase http://en.chessbase.com/post/tata-steel-2015-preview It's quite an unusual tournament over 13 rounds where round 5 will be played in Rotterdam and Round 10 in the Hague.

[Mick Norris]

Knee deep in previews
Chess.com

[Chris Rice]

Both the Masters and Challengers are due to kick off at 12.30pm (UK time) according to the information on the official site although the Chess 24 live game feed clock seems to indicate a 3.30pm UK time start. Not sure what I've missed there. The pairings for sure are:

Tata Steel Masters Round 1 - Saturday the 10th

Radjabov, T. - Van Wely, L.
Ivanchuk, V. - Jobava, B.
Vachier-Lagrave, M. - Hou, Y.
Ding, L. - Caruana, F.
Saric, I. - Aronian, L.
Giri, A. - Carlsen, M.
So, W. - Wojtaszek, R.

Tata Steel Challengers Round 1 - Saturday the 10th

Shankland, S. - Wei, Y.
Dale, A. - Haast, A.
Navara, D. - l' Ami, E.
Timman, J. - Klein, D.
Van Kampen, R. - Sevian, S.
Michiels, B. - Gunina, V.
Saleh, S. - Potkin, V.

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.

Live games http://www.tatasteelchess.com/tournament/livegames

[Mick Norris]

chess.com has

The first round starts Saturday at 1.30pm local time which is 4.30am Pacific, 7.30am New York and 11.30pm Sydney.

Preview with round by round pairings

[Chris Rice]

Well we're off at 3.30pm (UK) after all, Vachier-Lagrave playing the Alekhine-Chatard against Hou Yifan. No coverage of the Challengers by the looks of it.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Presumably 12:30 not 15:30? Does anyone know of a stripped down site with just the positions and moves?

[Barry Sandercock]

ChessBomb website is a good one.

[Chris Rice]

ChessBomb website is a good one.

Good suggestion, you get the Challengers section as well.

[Chris Rice]

Presumably 12:30 not 15:30? Does anyone know of a stripped down site with just the positions and moves?

Apologies Chris for the typo, I did mean 12.30.