Tata Steel Chess Tournament


The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is an annual chess tournament held in January in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. It was called the Hoogovens tournament from its creation in 1938 until the sponsor Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Steel to form the Corus Group in 1999, after which the tournament was called the Corus chess tournament. Corus Group became Tata Steel Europe in 2007. Despite the name changes, the series is numbered sequentially from its Hoogovens beginnings; for example, the 2011 event was referred to as the 73rd Tata Steel Chess Tournament.
Top grandmasters compete in the tournament, but regular club players are welcome to play as well. The Masters group pits fourteen of the world's best against each other in a round-robin tournament, and has sometimes been described as the "Wimbledon of Chess". Since 1938, there has been a long list of famous winners, including Max Euwe, Bent Larsen, Tigran Petrosian, Paul Keres, Lajos Portisch, Boris Spassky, Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Viktor Korchnoi, Jan Timman, Anatoly Karpov, Vassily Ivanchuk, Vladimir Kramnik, Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, and Magnus Carlsen. Of the eight World Chess Champions since 1946, only the names of Vasily Smyslov and Bobby Fischer are missing. In 2001, nine of the top ten players in the world participated.
Magnus Carlsen holds the record for most wins at the tournament, with seven titles to his name. Viswanathan Anand is the only other player to have won the event five or more times, and also holds the record of most consecutive games played at the tournament without a loss.

Tournament history

Hoogovens Beverwijk

The early tournaments were very small, starting with groups of four in 1938, and entry restricted to Dutch players. The first five tournaments continued this way, with the contest held annually early in January. In 1943 and 1944 the tournament field was doubled in size to eight players. No tournament was held in 1945 due to World War II. The first international tournament was held in 1946. The main tournament field was expanded to ten, with invitations to Alberic O'Kelly de Galway and Gösta Stoltz along with a Dutch contingent of eight.
The tournament field remained at ten until 1953 when it was increased to twelve, and an international women's tournament was also held. In 1954 the tournament field was returned to ten players, but the strength of the competitions increased. The field was greatly enlarged to 18 in 1963, and although it reduced to 16 in 1964, the event had become the strongest international chess tournament in the world.
As the tournament grew in stature, the ancillary women's tournament became a regular feature, as did a 'Masters' event and 'Masters Reserves' events. There also began a tradition to operate a year on year invitation policy that resembled the system used in football 'league tables'; the winner of a lesser category event would receive an invitation to the next higher event the following year.
The 1946 tournament was one of the first European international chess tournaments after World War II. Food shortages were still a problem in Europe, so the post-tournament banquet featured pea soup, inexpensive fare of the common people. In subsequent years pea soup has been served as the first course of the concluding banquet, a tradition continued when the tournament was moved from Beverwijk to Wijk aan Zee.
, Hoogovens 1960
vs. Bruno Parma, Hoogovens 1963
Winners of the top group:
The tournament was moved to the Dutch seaside town Wijk aan Zee in 1968.
In this period, the tournament was popularly called both "Hoogovens" and "Wijk aan Zee".
Winners of the Grandmaster A group since 1968 have been:
From 2000, the popular name for the tournament was more or less equally shared between "Wijk aan Zee" and "Corus".
From 2011, the popular name for the tournament was changed from 'Corus' to 'Tata Steel'.

1980s

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990s

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

The tournament was held in Wijk aan Zee along with the first round of 1994 FIDE Candidates Tournament.

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000s

2000

IM :nl:Manuel Bosboom|Manuel Bosboom won Reserve Group Swiss-system tournament with the score 7/9 and performance rating 2595.

2001

WGM Viktorija Čmilytė won Reserve Group Swiss-system tournament with the score 7/9 and performance rating 2616.

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

The 2008 Corus Chess Tournament took place in the De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee. The format of each of the three Grandmaster groups remained a 14 player single round robin. The participants in group A included eight of the world's top ten players : Viswanathan Anand, Vassily Ivanchuk, Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Peter Leko, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Teimour Radjabov and Levon Aronian. The remaining players were Boris Gelfand, Michael Adams, Magnus Carlsen, Judit Polgár, Pavel Eljanov and Loek van Wely. The average rating of 2742 made it a Category 20 tournament. The only top ten players not participating were Alexander Morozevich and Alexei Shirov.
The tournament was won by Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen.
Grandmaster group B was won by Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia with 9½ points, and group C by Italy's Fabiano Caruana with 10, two points ahead of his nearest rival. The Honorary group, a new category consisting of four former A group champions playing a double round robin, was won by Ljubomir Ljubojević with 4 points out of 6, ahead of Jan Timman, Viktor Korchnoi and Lajos Portisch.

2009

2010s

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2020s

2020

Tata Steel Chess India

2018

NameNov 2018 blitz rating12Total
27861½
28930½½

2019