Wijk aan Zee 2016

Soon time for one of the most interesting tournaments of every year, in Wijk aan Zee. Carlsen has the chance to win it for the fifth time, and would then equal Anand's record. The latter won for the first time already in 1989, when the tournament was considerably weaker than today and none of the top players participated. Ribli was the highest rated participant with 2625, and ended up as one of four winners, together with Anand.

This year (as usual) the only result that wouldn't be considered to be a flop for Carlsen would be sole first. Even more so than usual considering that the event seems slightly weaker than some of the previous editions, and also due to the fact that some participants have the Candidates coming up two months later.

The field:

Carlsen

Caruana

Giri

Ding Liren

So

Karjakin

Eljanov

Mamedyarov

Tomashevsky

Adams

Navara

Wei Yi

Hou Yifan

van Wely

Tournament page:

http://www.tatasteelchess.com

Kasparov only won Wijk three times, which can be explained by his only participating three times. He preferred to concentrate on Linares, and though it was too close between the events to prepare properly.

Needless to say, the first time Wei Yi faces Carlsen is already something to look forward to.

Nice to see Eljanov and especially Wei Yi in the field !

Would have been nice to see MVL, now that he seems to miss out on the Grand Chess Tour, but interesting with the three Chinese players.

Kasparov's +19-1=19 in his three starts is rather decent. The loss came after mixing up the preparation against Sokolov in 1999, which ended a sequence of seven wins in a row. 

Of Carlsen's four wins the one in 2013 was the most impressive, 1.5 ahead of second placed Aronian, scoring +7-0=6. Last year was ok too, with six straight wins but also a loss, against Wojtaszek.

As is Wei Yi's performance in general. This is the first time he's played in a tournament with so many elite players, to my knowledge.

Well, there were more elite players at the Qatar Masters tournament. But since it was a Swiss, Wei Yi didn't face many elite players. In fact, he had a pretty poor performance. I am more interested in seeing how he responds to his bad performance than in seeing the first Carlsen game against him. But of course, I'll be closely watching that game anyway.

Wei Yi will be an exciting person to follow through all his games, not just Carlsen. At least for me, this will be my first time seeing him in a top tournament (one with RR format)

Oh, I see SmyslovFan already says this.

I was about to say that.  I wonder if they will continuing sponsoring it if people continue to call it by its old name.

As for Wei Yi he had some moments in Quatar, but I'm not sure form is something you can completely control.  Every player has some dips in form now and again.  Hopefully he is sharper in time for this one, but there's no guarantee of it. 

I have a feeling the top players have already dissected Wei Yi's play and have found weaknesses. I think Carlsen himself said something about his weaknesses in an interview in Qatar. I don't think the performance at Qatar was a fluke.

Wei Yi is probably going to have to take some pretty nasty knocks before he gets into the top ten. This is normal. Nakamura and Giri are just two recent examples of elite players who also had to endure getting smashed by stronger players before they improved. There have been quite a few promising youngsters who never made it beyond the stage Wei Yi is currently in.

Chess talent alone isn't enough to become a champion. Gata Kamsky,  Matthew Sadler and Valeri Salov come to mind as three players who had tremendous talent but found the challenges of elite tournament play daunting. Kamsky retired from competitive chess for many years, ostensibly to pursue a career in medicine. He did study law during his period of inactivity. Sadler was probably the best well adjusted of the three. He left chess to work in IT and make a steady income rather than study chess for ten hours a day!

Salov's case is interesting because he complained quite loudly about Kasparov and Karpov among others  blocking his invitations to tournaments. Kevin Spraggett, a pretty opinionated player himself, argues that Salov was the best player in the world in the 1990s and the chess establishment couldn't handle such a great talent. Of course, such an extraordinary claim isn't backed up by facts (he never rose above either in the ranks and had losing records against both Super K's), but it does illustrate the tensions that a player must endure. Salov has blamed Kasparov, World Jewry, and Masons among others for blocking his rise. 

Those aren't the only three talented youngsters who never quite fulfilled expectations of becoming champions. Joel Lautier and many others also reached similar levels to Wei Yi as youngsters without quite making it to the next level as professionals.

I think what you said about top players dissecting his play is quite likely; however, I don't think that's particularly relevant to his performance in Qatar, which was mainly due to him losing against lower rated players.

To get to the next level you need to have the opportunity to play the top players enough and get used to what is needed (such as some extensive deep knowledge of the openings played).  If a player doesn't get the chances to do that then it's probably hard to progress further and eventually they'll drop off a bit once they lose some of the interest needed.

Wei Yi played lots of top players during 2015, for example Topalov, Karjakin, Svidler, Vitiugov, Navara, and of course numerous games against the best Chinese players Ding Liren, Yu Yangyi, Wang Yue etc. So he isn't entirely unused to very strong opposition.

Chess is a game with 16 pieces and 16 pawns played on 64 squares. And in the end Carlsen wins.

Loved your comment.

Of course Carlsen has to be the favorite. I hope neither Caruana not Giri win, because given the irregularity they display, they would probably be in bad form during the Candidates (and I would be glad to see one of them win there).