BOTW: 2019.01.12

John Upper's picture
Submitted by John Upper on Sat, 01/12/2019 - 12:54

2019 TATA Steel

The 81st annual tournament at Wijk aan Zee runs January 12-27, 2019. The top section is a 14-player RR featuring six of the world's top eight players, including World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

Rank Name FIDE NAT World
1 Carlsen, Magnus 2835 NOR 1
2 Mamedyarov, Shak 2817 AZR 3
3 Ding, Liren 2813 CHN 4
4 Giri, Anish 2783 NED 5
5 Kramnik, Vladimir 2777 RUS 7
6 Anand, Viswanathan 2773 IND 8
7 Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2763 RUS 13
8 Radjabov, Teimour 2757 AZR 14
9 Duda, Jan-Krzysztof 2738 POL 19
10 Rapport, Richard 2731 HUN 23
11 Shankland, Samuel 2725 USA 27
12 Fedoseev, Vladimir 2724 RUS 28
13 Vidit, Gujrathi 2695 IND 45
14 Van Foreest, Jorden 2612 NED 192

Notes:

  • Carlsen has the record of 6 tournament wins in Wijk
  • Anand has won 5 of the 18 times he has played in the Wijk tournament.
  • van Foreest qualified by winning the 2018 Challengers group.

 

The Challengers group is also a 14-player RR, with the winner qualifying for the 2020 Masters. Canadian Evgeny Bareev comes out of his semi-retirement to play for the fifth time in Wijk; he won the main event in 2002 (ahead of Grischuk, Adams, Morozevich, Leko, etc.) 

Update: In round 1, Bareev won on the Black side of the French against the third youngest GM in chess history: 13-year-old Indian GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa.

Links

Live Games with Commentary

There are several options for watching live games with GM commentary:

  • IMs Anna Rudolf & Lawrence Trent are the hosts on the official site and on the chess.com twitch feed. They're onsite, with video and player interviews.
  • The Chessbrahs do live commentary on their twitch stream; GM Aman Hambleton and Eric Kurtz hosted for round 1
  • GMs Peter Svidler & Jan Gustafsson do commentary on chess24, but only for premium members.

 

photo from official site: Wijk aan Zee on a rare non-rainy and relatively wind-free day.

 

 

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