Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2016: Introduction

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2016, takes place in the Dutch seaside town of Wijk aan Zee, from the 15th to the 31st of January.

As always, the main venue for the event will be the De Moriaan Community Centre. As has been the case in recent years, there will also be two ‘chess on tour’ rounds played away from the De Moriaan. These will take place at the Spoorwegmuseum in Utrecht and the Science Center NEMO, in Amsterdam.

The tournament consists of two main groups this year, a ‘Masters’ group and a ‘Challengers’ group. Details of the groups are shown below:

Masters				Challengers
GM	Magnus Carlsen	NOR	2844	GM	Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu	GER	2679
GM	Anish Giri	NED	2798	GM	Adhiban Baskaran	IND	2653
GM	Fabiano Caruana	USA	2787	GM	Eltaj Safarli	AZE	2653
GM	Wesley So	USA	2773	GM	Alexey Dreev	RUS	2644
GM	Sergey Karjakin	RUS	2769	GM	Erwin l'Ami	NED	2627
GM	Liren Ding	CHN	2766	GM	Benjamin Bok	NED	2607
GM	Pavel Eljanov	UKR	2760	GM	Samuel Sevian	USA	2578
GM	Shakhryar Mamedyarov	AZE	2747	GM	Mikhail Antipov	RUS	2567
GM	Michael Adams	ENG	2744	GM	Nijat Abasov	AZE	2556
GM	David Navara	CZE	2730	WGM	Wenjun Ju	CHN	2548
GM	Evgeny Tomashevsky	RUS	2728	IM	Jorden van Foreest	NED	2541
GM	Yi Wei	CHN	2706	IM	Nino Batsiashvili	GEO	2485
GM	Yifan Hou	CHN	2673	IM	Miguoel Admiraal	NED	2441
GM	Loek van Wely	NED	2640	WGM	Anne Haast	NED	2391

Playing Schedule:

The tournament will be played over 13-rounds and according to the round robin format. Because of the switch in venues for a couple of rounds, and the groups having staggered rest days, the schedule takes a little understanding …

Masters	Challengers
1 - Sat 16; 2 - Sun 17; 3 - Mon 18; 4 - Tue 19. Rest day: Wed 20. 5 - Thu 21 (Amsterdam); 6 - Fri 22; 7 - Sat 23; 8 - Sun 24. Rest day: Mon 25. 9 - Tue 26; 10 - Wed 27 (in Utrecht). Rest day: Thu 28. 11 - Fri 29; 12 - Sat 30; 13 - Sun 31.	1 - Sat 16; 2 - Sun 17; 3 - Mon 18; 4 - Tue 19; 5 - Wed 20. Rest day: Thu 21 Jan. 6 - Fri 22; 7 - Sat 23; 8 - Sun 24. Rest day: Mon 25. 9 - Tue 26; 10 - Wed 27. Rest day: Thu 28. 11 - Fri 29; 12 - Sat 30; 13 - Sun 31.
Average Rating: 2748 Category: 20	Average Rating: 2569 Category: 13

— Play begins at 13:30 local time (check your time, here) for most rounds. Exceptions are, the final round, which starts at 12:00 noon and for games in Amsterdam and Utrecht, (on the 21st and 27th, as indicated above), which start at 14:00.

Time Control: 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.

More information can be found at the official tournament website: www.tatasteelchess.com