Tata Steel: opening and pairings

The 74th Tata Steel Chess Tournament was officially opened on Friday, January 13th in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. The opening ceremony included the drawing of lots for Grandmaster Groups A and B, as this was already done for the C group on Thursday night.

Vassily Ivanchuk had his own way of pushing the button that generated his pairing number on the computer.

The 74th edition of the Tata Steel, formerly Corus, formerly Hoogovens Tournament, was opened on Friday afternoon by Dr Karl-Ulrich Köhler, CEO and Managing Director of Tata Steel Europe. Like last year (and the year before), the sponsor's delegate obviously couldn't to speak of a positive economic situation.

Dr Karl-Ulrich Köhler, CEO and Managing Director of Tata Steel Europe

Köhler literally used phrases like "there's also some bad news", "less demand of steel worldwide" and "global crisis", and the big, white tent, placed yet again in the middle of the small village of Wijk aan Zee, packed with hundreds of people, became very quiet for a few minutes.

When suddenly Mr Köhler stopped speaking about Tata Steel and declared the tournament to be opened, there was a mixture of disappointment and relief in the audience. He hadn't said that things would come to an end after the 75th jubilee edition (which was been secured), but apparently he wasn't in the position either to make promises about the year 2014 and further.

Grandmaster Group A participants in one of the front rows

After this speech, the players of the B group were asked to come on stage. The procedure for the drawing of lots wasn't changed: one by one, the players had to press a button placed on a stand in the middle. Tournament director Jeroen van den Berg would then announce the pairing number, which was randomly generated (well, at least that's what everybody assumes!) by a computer and shown on a big TV screen. After that the same thing was done for the A group.

All participants of the A group on stage

World's number one Magnus Carlsen pushes and gets pairing number 6.

As always, Vassily Ivanchuk got the crowd laughing - but this time deliberately! He pushed the button with his elbow, but kept a straight face. Gotta love the guy!

Below you'll find the full pairings for the three groups, followed by some more photos. The author of these lines wasn't supposed to be sitting behind his laptop already, but behind a chess board. I'm actually playing myself as well, in the Weekender event. The schedule is one game on Friday night, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

The Weekender already started on Friday night

However, after I won my first game with Black yesterday (in fact against Loek van Wely's girlfriend - we'll have to wait and see if an interview with KingLoek is still an option now!), on Saturday an arbiter told me that my opponent didn't feel well, and decided to stay home.  "But you probably won't be bored here, right?" Guess not!

And so just moments after the start of the round - the amateurs start simultaneously with the grandmasters - I was leading overall in the whole event, as the only player with 2 out of 2!

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group A | Pairings

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group B | Pairings

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group C | Pairings

The crowd in the tent - here we see some B group participants, with in the middle Jan Timman, and on the right arbiters Cor Roet and Anil Surender

Dolf Vos, as always the host for the opening ceremony

Two of the absolute favorites in Wijk aan Zee sitting next to each other: Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian

Last week in Reggio Emilia, now in Wijk: Anish Giri and Hikaru Nakamura

Tournament director Jeroen van den Berg, getting ready to do the drawing of lots...

...and here just after the job has been done, announcing the round 1 pairings

Vugar Gashimov, the only player in the A group to make his debut in Wijk aan Zee

Veselin Topalov, whom we recently interviewed

After a sabattical year, Loek van Wely is back!

Last year's 'C' winner Daniele Vocaturo, now in 'B'

Also in B: Jan Timman, writing down the pairing numbers, and next to him Erwin l'Ami

Ukrainian super talent Ilya Nyzhnyk

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Chess ladies: Alina l'Ami (not playing), Tania Sachdev and Elisabeth Paehtz

Anish Giri being interviewed for Dutch national radio

Loek van Wely being interviewed by the organizers - you can see the result in this video by them: