Magnus Carlsen To Play 2016 Tata Steel Chess Tournament
Magnus Carlsen will defend his title at the 2016 Tata Steel Chess Tournament. The 78th edition will run from January 15-31 2016 in Wijk aan Zee, Utrecht and Amsterdam.
It's a big thing for super tournaments: whether Magnus Carlsen is playing or not. The Tata Steel Chess Tournament must be one of his favorites, because the world champion will be playing in it, in January, for the 12th time.
Since 2004 Carlsen only skipped the Wijk aan Zee tournament only once, in 2014. He won it four times, and he'll try to emulate Vishy Anand's record of five tournament victories in 2016.
A highly anticipated game will be the one where Carlsen faces Wei Yi, the Chinese super talent that many expect to grow into a top-10 player in the near future. Wei won the Tata Steel Challengers in 2015 in impressive manner.
Carlsen's biggest rivals will likely be the players currently in the world's top 10 or just out of it: Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, Anish Giri, Wesley So and Sergey Karjakin, — closely followed by Michael Adams, Shakhryar Mamedyarov, David Navara, Hou Yifan and Loek van Wely.
2016 Tata Steel Masters Participants
| Name | Rating | World # | Country |
| Fabiano Caruana | 2787 | 6 | USA |
| Ding Liren | 2781 | 8 | China |
| Anish Giri | 2778 | 9 | The Netherlands |
| Wesley So | 2767 | 10 | USA |
| Sergey Karjakin | 2766 | 11 | Russia |
| Michael Adams | 2744 | 18 | Great Britain |
| Shakhryar Mamedyarov | 2743 | 20 | Azerbaijan |
| Wei Yi | 2737 | 23 | China |
| David Navara | 2730 | 29 | Czech Republic |
| Hou Yifan | 2683 | 61 | China |
| Loek van Wely | 2632 | 139 | The Netherlands |
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Only 12 of the 14 names were revealed today. The 13th player will be the best player of the ACP Tour 2015 with a rating below 2750 on December 1. The 14th player is likely to be announced in several weeks’ time. The participants of the Tata Steel Challengers will be announced in December.
The names were revealed at a press conference at Tata Steel headquarters in Velsen-Noord, by tournament director Jeroen van den Berg, with Anish Giri present.
Again, two of the 13 rounds will be played outside Wijk aan Zee. Last month the first external location was revealed: the Railway Museum in Utrecht.
At the press conference, Theo Henrar, the chairman of directors at Tata Steel, revealed the other location: Science Center NEMO in Amsterdam.
“It has become a tradition to play two rounds of the Tata Steel Masters on prime locations like the Rijksmuseum or The Rotterdam,” said Henrar. “By doing so we broaden the appeal of the tournament and the sport of chess.”
The 2016 Tata Steel Chess Tournament will be the 78th edition of the annual chess festival, which started in 1938. The dates are January 15-31 2016.
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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