Carlsen's next stop? Wijk aan Zee (January 11 to 27)

[Javier]

After his triumph in London, a new event appears in the Norwegian GM´s calendar in January:

The 75th Tata Steel Chess Tournament: from 11 to 27 January in Wijk aan Zee.

 

Here's the list of players:

 

GM Carlsen, Magnus NOR

GM Aronian, Levon ARM

GM Caruana, Fabiano ITA

GM Anand, Viswanathan IND

GM Karjakin, Sergey RUS

GM Nakamura, Hikaru USA

GM Wang, Hao CHN

GM Leko, Peter HUN

GM Giri, Anish NED

GM Harikrishna, Pentala IND

GM van Wely, Loek NED

GM Sokolov, Ivan NED

GM L'Ami, Erwin NED

GM Hou, Yifan CHN

 

 

 

Besides Kramnik, other big names missing are Radjabov, Topalov, Mamedyarov ... it would have been nice to have seen the taking part in this event.

What I like about this event is how the organisers are quite willing to sacrifice the tournament category and instead prefer to promote local chess, a concept which not everyone understands (I remember some editions of the Linares tournament without a single Spaniard!).

Also interesting is how the inclusion of a female player is now becoming a norm: Hou Yifan, with 2606, is ranked below the 200th spot on the FIDE list... but so what??

 

In any case, this new edition (75th!!) of a real classic tournament will be interesting.

We will have to look closely at Caruana´s performance.

Will Aronian prove that his result in London was accidental? maybe.

Will Anand wake up this time? I don't think so.

An unexpected victory for Chinese Chess by Wang Hao? unlikely.

Will this be Nakamura´s tournament? I doubt it.

Will Carlsen improve his rating? impossible!

 

Here's the link to the official website, but not much info is available yet:

 

http://www.tatasteelchess.com/