All Tata Steel Participants Announced
All participants of both the masters and the challengers groups of the 2016 Tata Steel Chess Tournament have been announced.
Since early November we have known that Magnus Carlsen is going to defend his title at the 2016 Tata Steel Chess Tournament. The Norwegian star is going to play in Wijk aan Zee for the 12th time.
Back then, 12 of the 14 participants in the masters group were announced. Since then, the other two names were revealed as well: Evgeny Tomashevsky and Pavel Eljanov.
Tomashevsky qualifed as the wildcard of the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP). Pavel Eljanov convinced the organizers in Baku, where he played very well in the World Cup.
Tata Steel 2016 | Participants, Masters
| Name | Rating | World # | Country |
| Magnus Carlsen | 2834 | 1 | Norway |
| Fabiano Caruana | 2787 | 7 | USA |
| Anish Giri | 2784 | 8 | The Netherlands |
| Ding Liren | 2776 | 9 | China |
| Wesley So | 2775 | 10 | USA |
| Sergey Karjakin | 2766 | 12 | Russia |
| Pavel Eljanov | 2763 | 13 | Ukraine |
| Shakhryar Mamedyarov | 2748 | 16 | Azerbaijan |
| Evgeny Tomashevsky | 2744 | 18 | Russia |
| Michael Adams | 2737 | 20 | Great Britain |
| Wei Yi | 2730 | 27 | China |
| David Navara | 2730 | 26 | Czech Republic |
| Hou Yifan | 2683 | 59 | China |
| Loek van Wely | 2636 | 132 | The Netherlands |
The participants of the challengers were announced last week. Yet again it's a mix of all kinds of players: young, more experienced, solid, more aggressive, you name it.
The Dutch audience has to do without the legendary Jan Timman this year. Instead, a promising young star is making his debut: Jorden van Foreest. At only 16 he is the youngest Dutch grandmaster at the moment.
Van Foreest will meet the youngest grandmaster in the world in this tournament: the American Samuel Sevian, who is only 15.
Nijat Abasov qualified for the challengers by winning the Cultural Village tournament recently. Alexei Dreev, a former winner in Wijk aan Zee, qualified as another ACP wild card: the one for veteran players (45 years and older (Dreev is 46).
Tata Steel 2016 | Participants, Challengers
| Name | Country | Rating |
| Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu | Germany | 2675 |
| Adhiban Baskaran | India | 2669 |
| Eltaj Safarli | Azerbaijan | 2653 |
| Alexey Dreev | Russia | 2644 |
| Erwin l’Ami | Netherlands | 2628 |
| Benjamin Bok | Netherlands | 2594 |
| Samuel Sevian | United States | 2578 |
| Mikhail Antipov | Russia | 2569 |
| Nijat Abasov | Azerbaijan | 2556 |
| Jorden van Foreest | Netherlands | 2547 |
| Ju Wenjun | China | 2543 |
| Nino Batsiashvili | Georgia | 2498 |
| Miguoël Admiraal | Netherlands | 2438 |
| Anne Haast | Netherlands | 2390 |
The 78th edition will run from January 15-31 in Wijk aan Zee, Utrecht and Amsterdam.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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