2015 Tata Steel Chess (Wijk aan Zee)

World Champion Magnus Carlsen will be one of the 14 competitors in the 77th edition of the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee (Netherlands). With an average rating of 2746 the tournament boasts Carlsen (2862), Fabiano Caruana (2820) and defending champion Levon Aronian (2797) leading the field. There is also a Category 13 Challengers section with 14 players.

Hometown favorite Anish Giri is 4th seed which is quite an improvement over last years 7th and 9th two years ago when his rating was 2720. He is now knocking at the door of 2800 at 2784. Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan will also test her 2673 standing and see if she can finally overtake Judit Polgar who has been the highest-rated woman for decades.

Wesley So is another intriguing name. He will play his first major tournament under the USA flag and will is coming off of a couple of lucrative victories. It will be interesting to see if the Filipino is the new “Asian Tiger“! The key factor in the field is that Carlsen has not been in top form despite successfully defending his title and all will try to test his form.

The Challengers tournament will be led by David Navara of the Czech Republic, but will have some interesting faces including the second-seed Wei Yi of the gold medal Olympiad Chinese team. The field features no less than five Dutch players and two Americans (Sam Shankland and Samuel Sevian). Sevian is waiting on his GM title to be conferred before it is official. Another interesting selection is Valentina Guinina the Russian champion who is also a three-time Olympiad gold medalist. She recently bagged two medals at the World Mind Games event in China.

Tata Steel is an Indian multinational conglomerate consisting of a number of industries. Those following the tournament from the early days will remember it as the Hoorgovens, a Dutch steel company that would later merge with British steel to form the Corus Group. When Tata steel purchased Corus in 2007, the tournament took on the name of Indian conglomerate. For two years, the tournament has had two sections instead of the traditional three. There has been a lot of speculation about the future of the tournament.

Official Site: https://www.tatasteelchess.com/
Videos: (YouTube, Chess24)

2015 Tata Steel Tournament January 9th-25th, 2015 (Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands)
Masters
#	Name	Title	Federation	Flag	Rating
1	Carlsen, Magnus	GM	Norway		2862
2	Caruana, Fabiano	GM	Italy		2820
3	Aronian, Levon	GM	Armenia		2797
4	Giri, Anish	GM	Netherlands		2784
5	So, Wesley	GM	USA		2762
6	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	GM	France		2757
7	Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	GM	Poland		2744
8	Radjabov, Teimour	GM	Azerbaijan		2734
9	Ding, Liren	GM	China		2732
10	Jobova, Baadur	GM	Georgia		2727
11	Ivanchuk, Vassily	GM	Ukraine		2715
12	Hou, Yifan	GM	China		2673
13	Van Wely, Loek	GM	Netherlands		2667
14	Saric, Ivan	GM	Croatia		2666
Challengers
#	Name	Title	Federation	Flag	Rating
1	Navara, David	GM	Czech Republic		2729
2	Wei, Yi	GM	China		2675
3	Shankland, Sam	GM	USA		2652
4	Van Kampen, Robin	GM	Netherlands		2615
5	L’Ami, Erwin	GM	Netherlands		2613
6	Potkin, Vladimir	GM	Russia		2608
7	Saleh, Salem	GM	UAE		2603
8	Timman, Jan	GM	Netherlands		2593
9	Michiels, Bart	GM	Belgium		2563
10	Guinina, Valentina	GM	Russia		2538
11	Klein, David	GM	Netherlands		2517
12	Sevian, Samuel	IM	USA		2511
13	Haast, Anne	WIM	Netherlands		2352
14	Dale, Ari	IM	Australia		2291
Official Site