Tata Steel Chess round 1 begins on Saturday, January 10th, and will be 13 rounds with a time control of 100 mins for 40 moves, followed by 50 mins for 20 moves, then 15 mins for the remainder of the game. There is a 30 second increment starting from the first move.

Here are the participants of the Masters section. Very strong event, can't wait to watch the games.

GM Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2862
GM Caruana, Fabiano ITA 2820
GM Aronian, Levon ARM 2797
GM Giri, Anish NED 2784
GM So, Wesley USA 2762
GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA 2757
GM Wojtaszek, Radoslaw POL 2744
GM Radjabov, Teimour AZE 2734
GM Ding, Liren CHN 2732
GM Jobava, Baadur GEO 2727
GM Ivanchuk, Vasil UKR 2715
GM Hou, Yifan CHN 2673
GM Van Wely, Loek NED 2667
GM Saric, Ivan CRO 2666

The Challengers section also looks very interesting. BJJ, Wei Yi is playing. I'll be interested to keep an eye on Sam Shankland, he has surpassed 2650 FIDE.

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

Here's a link to the tournament website. Can't wait for this one to start.

http://www.tatasteelchess.com/tournament/information

Did they not use to have a C group, which iirc Carlsen destroyed like 20 years ago?

Navara in the second group seems... interesting

After an amazing run, including his insane 7/7 start at the Sinquefield Cup, and a peak live rating of 2851.3, Caruana has since dropped off a little and is now "only" 2820. Was the peak achieved via positive variance, and the drop of the inevitable regression to the mean? Or is he truly a 2850+ "strength" player, and the drop off was negative variance, soon to be recovered?

Aronian is... BELOW 2800? Is that just a blip, soon to be righted? Or will he lose more rating points in this event as he begins an inexorable downward slide?

Wesley So has officially changed federations, and trails Nakamura by only 5.3 points for the title of "highest rated American". Is this the event where he moves into the #1 slot?

Hou Yifan is now, with Judit Polgar's retirement, officially the highest rated active female chess player in the world, and two more ELO points could make the Polgar retirement point, and use of the word "active", moot. However her sights could rightly be set higher than that. She is only 27 rating points away from the 2700 barrier (generally accepted as "Super GM" level). Will this event be a stepping stone towards that goal? And how much more might she hope to accomplish down the road? She is only 20 years old, after all...

Wei Yi is rated 2675, and seeded second in the B section... at the ripe old age of 15 years, 7 months, and 8 days (on the 10th when round one begins). For comparison, Magnus Carlsen was 15 years, 7 months, and 1 day old when the July 1, 2006 rating list was published... with him at 2675. In other words the two are absolutely neck and neck for the status of "highest rating ever achieved at this specific age". Let's not forget, though, that from this identical point, it took Carlsen a full year before he achieved a published rating of over 2700. Does Wei Yi rack up the rating points and dominate the B section, putting himself out in front of Magnus' pace?

And what other storylines and questions are you eager to follow?

Great post, BJJ. I didn't realize Wei Yi was right there with Carlsen at that age. Great company.

Here are a couple of story lines I'll be watching.

-Ivanchuk is playing in the Masters section, and it seems like nearly every tournament he plays in results in a good story or two. He always promises to provide some entertaining games.

-Sam Sevian is a GM-elect right now, I believe. I don't think he's ever played in a field quite this strong, so I'm curious to see how he performs. His results lately have been good. He just turned 14 on December 26th (according to wikipedia), so he's not on Wei Yi's pace, but he'll be interesting to watch.

-Can Radjabov return to his old form? He was at 2793, knocking on the door to 2800, less than two years ago, but it seems like a decade. He has been very quite lately.

Wow, great field! and great points guys.

I am rooting for the Sam's!! And wei, yi to get 2700

Rooting for Sevian as well! His "prodigy" status has slipped just a little, and it would be nice to see him rebound. For one four month stretch, from age 12.0 to 12.25, he was the third highest rated player (at or before that age range) of all time... or at least that I'm aware of within my list of 40 prodigies.) That was two years ago though, and now at the age of 14.0 he's "only" the 8th highest rated player (again, at or below his current age) on my list.

If he gains 38 or more rating points this month, though, he could slide back up and be the 5th highest rated player at or before 14.08 years old in the February ratings list (Hou Yifan at 2549 is currently #5 on my list at that age range, behind #4 Wei Yi [2557], #3 Bu Xianghzi [2565], #2 Karjakin [2566], and #1 Magnus [2581, which he actually hit four months earlier at 13.83, but then didn't top until over a year later, at 15.08]). Sevian is 2511, so a good result here would be awesome indeed!

can someone explain the logic behind the 13 rounds? y not 12 so u play everyone twice

14 competitors, 13 rounds = playing everyone once.

it all makes sense now, interesting format where the draw will play a big role

Carlsen got 7 blacks but I still think he's the favorite by a big margin.

WOJ!!!

I understand Carlsen's desire to be more attractive to the public, but in my impression, he went over the top and played vs Wojtaszek like an utter aggro whale. He had got lucky enough to not be punished by Caruana at Sinquefield for shoving the a-pawn down prematurely; now he decided to try it again, in a less favourable setting imho, a Leningrad Dutch by transposition, where Black can't have sufficient queenside counterplay because White has a lot of space there (especially because he played b4!?, b5 and Be2 instead of the kingside fianchetto), so I reckon he should have attempted something on the kingside earlier than he decided to do so in the game. (Ye Old Faithful works in a similar situation only if White hasn't played b4 yet.)

Why on earth was there a random "hey-look-at-this-stripper" break in that video?!?! :O

Idk why, The Ginger GM decided to add a little bit of nastiness into the video I found it funny.

loooooooooooooool

Go Jobava!

engine reckons he's got an advantage here, will see if he can convert after waiting to see if l'ami can pick out that he's just gone from +1 to +6 in the last move

time trouble is a hell of a drug

Looks like it's the Beast Chucky that has come to this event instead of a Donk Chucky.

Beware!

His postgame interviews are always better after a horrific loss, but would love to see him win a tournament like this for the old guard.

In case anyone is as easily confused as me, the rest of the tournament starts 15 minutes later now.

Can a mod please change the titel tot Wijk aan Zee?

Too late. How about Rutterdamn, Neterlend, Urope, tata steel

+1

Wins over both Carlsen AND Caruana? Never would have predicted that.

Did any of y'all see Shankland-Michiels from today? Hard to believe a 2550 GM would play a move like 26...g5??

http://chess.tuxtown.net/game-replay...44a96a8276c135

Is that from ChessCube? Do you play there sometimes?