Tata Steel 17 Jan - 2 Feb 2025

[Mick Norris]

Website

Line ups

Chess enthusiasts will be able to enjoy themselves again from 17 January to 2 February 2025 in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. The field of participants of the 87th Tata Steel Chess Tournament, with no less than five players from the world’s top ten, is again extremely well filled this year.

Tournament director Jeroen van den Berg is pleased with the field of participants:
“I always strive for a balance between the well-known top players and promising talents. The Masters will feature Grandmasters who can still be regarded as talents in terms of age, but in terms of performance they have been outstanding for so long that they have actually already outgrown that status. I am referring especially to Praggnanandhaa, Abdusattorov and indeed Gukesh. I am proud of them when I see how, partly due to their previous participations in our tournament, they are now structurally among the world’s top players. In addition, my aim is to select as many players as possible with a strong mentality and willing to fight for the win. I think we can expect an interesting tournament on that front too.”

Caruana Tops Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2025 Lineup; Oro (11) Plays Challengers

The field for the 2025 Challengers, from which the winner will qualify for the 2026 Masters, is once again a nice mixture of different ages, genders, and backgrounds. Although he's only the 13th seed, 11-year-old Oro is a name to keep an eye on as one of the biggest talents in chess these days. Two more quite young participants are 14-year-old IM Lu Miaoyi (China) and 16-year-old GM Ediz Gurel (Turkey).

On paper, the favorites for tournament victory are the three top 100 players: GMs Thai Dai Van Nguyen (Czech Republic), Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzbekistan), and Frederik Svane (Germany). The two reigning world junior champions will be playing, too: GM Kazybek Nogerbek (Kazakhstan) and IM Divya Deshmukh (India).

[Mick Norris]

World Champion Gukesh, will be interesting to see how he does

[Mick Norris]

Harikrishna replaces Vidit

Gukesh v Giri tomorrow

[LawrenceCooper]

Chess24 commentary courtesy of Jovanka & David Howell: https://www.twitch.tv/chess24

[Paul Cooksey]

I had to watch on delay this evening. Excellent stuff.

Gukesh 1-0 Giri was close to being one of Giri's best days and ended up one of his worst.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Late draftee Harikrishna upset Erigaisi as well.

[LawrenceCooper]

I had to watch on delay this evening. Excellent stuff.

Gukesh 1-0 Giri was close to being one of Giri's best days and ended up one of his worst.

I was amazed to learn that Gukesh only arrived from India on the morning of round 1 but it worked out okay in the end.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I was amazed to learn that Gukesh only arrived from India on the morning of round 1 but it worked out okay in the end."

Botwinnik will be turning in his grave - you always arrive a few days in advance to acclimatise. The flight's at least nine hours, plus all the time wasting at each end. I assume he was going first-class and slept most of the way.

[Mick Norris]

Round 1 reports from TWIC and Chess Mind

[David Lettington]

Botwinnik will be turning in his grave - you always arrive a few days in advance to acclimatise.

I understand that he couldn't leave earlier because he was at a ceremony to receive India's highest sporting honour, the Khel Ratna Award, from the President of India.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Well, that's a reasonable excuse!

[Paul Cooksey]

I'd have been annoyed by Gukesh saving the game yesterday if I was a journalist. Young world champion loses first game after becoming distracted by outside pressures writes itself.

There is a lot of public interaction between the Indian players and politicians. I guess it says something about both chess and politics being different in India. Not necessarily better or worse, but significantly different.

[MJMcCready]

Is it worth following, Major events are on almost all the time now. Subsequently they don't seem so entertaining now.

[LawrenceCooper]

Seven out of seven decisive games in the Challengers! =5 so far in the Masters.

[Mick Norris]

Black is not ok in the Challengers