2013 Tata Steel Chess Tournament
The 2013 Tata Steel Chess tournament takes place from 12-27 January in the small town of Wijk Aan Zee in the Netherlands.
Once again the familiar format of this famous annual tournament has three separate single round-robin competitions, the A, B, and C Groups, each featuring 14 players.
The strongest tournament is the A Group and this year features 6 out of the top 10 ranked players; world champion Vishy Anand, world #1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Lev Aronian, rising star Fabiano Caruana, world #6 Sergey Karjakin, and US champion Hikaru Nakamura.
The former women's world chess champion Hou Yifan is the lowest seeded player in the A Group in what will be a real baptism of fire!
Ni Hua has had to withdraw from the B Group due to illness and is replaced by Sipke Ernst.
Play starts each day at 13:30 (12:30 UTC) except the final round which is at 12:00 (11:00 UTC). The official website will have live games. There will also be live commentary here on Chess.com/TV beginning with the first round. Scroll down on the tv page for the schedule.
The time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes to a finish with a 30 seconds increment starting from the first move. There are 3 rest days on 16, 21 & 24 January.
Tata Steel 2013 Group A
| # | Name | Fed | Elo |
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2861 |
| 2 | Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2802 |
| 3 | Caruana, Fabiano | ITA | 2781 |
| 4 | Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2780 |
| 5 | Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2772 |
| 6 | Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2769 |
| 7 | Wang, Hao | CHN | 2752 |
| 8 | Leko, Peter | HUN | 2735 |
| 9 | Giri, Anish | NED | 2720 |
| 10 | Harikrishna, Pentala | IND | 2698 |
| 11 | van Wely, Loek | NED | 2679 |
| 12 | Sokolov, Ivan | NED | 2663 |
| 13 | L'Ami, Erwin | NED | 2627 |
| 14 | Hou, Yifan | CHN | 2603 |
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Tata Steel 2013 Group B
| # | Name | Fed | Elo |
| 1 | Naiditsch, Arkadij | GER | 2708 |
| 2 | Movsesian, Sergei | ARM | 2688 |
| 3 | Edouard, Romain | FRA | 2686 |
| 4 | Tiviakov, Sergey | NED | 2655 |
| 5 | Turov, Maxim | RUS | 2630 |
| 6 | Rapport, Richard | HUN | 2621 |
| 7 | Nikolic, Predrag | BIH | 2619 |
| 8 | Smeets, Jan | NED | 2615 |
| 9 | Dubov, Daniil | RUS | 2600 |
| 10 | Ipatov, Alexander | TUR | 2587 |
| 11 | van Kampen, Robin | NED | 2581 |
| 12 | Grandelius, Nils | SWE | 2572 |
| 13 | Timman, Jan | NED | 2566 |
| 14 | Ernst, Sipke | NED | 2556 |
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Tata Steel 2013 Group C
| # | Name | Fed | Elo |
| 1 | Peralta, Fernando | ARG | 2617 |
| 2 | Kovchan, Alexander | UKR | 2579 |
| 3 | Brunello, Sabino | ITA | 2572 |
| 4 | Mekhitarian, Krikor Sevag | BRA | 2543 |
| 5 | Romanishin, Oleg M | UKR | 2521 |
| 6 | Gretarsson, Hjorvar Steinn | ISL | 2516 |
| 7 | Swinkels, Robin | NED | 2508 |
| 8 | Burg, Twan | NED | 2492 |
| 9 | Van Der Werf, Mark | NED | 2450 |
| 10 | Klein, David | NED | 2445 |
| 11 | Goryachkina, Aleksandra | RUS | 2402 |
| 12 | Bitensky, Igor | ISR | 2400 |
| 13 | Admiraal, Miguoel | NED | 2321 |
| 14 | Schut, Lisa | NED | 2295 |
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Who are your picks for Tata Steel 2013? Will the world champion Vishy Anand rediscover his form? Will Magnus Carlsen consolidate his #1 ranking with another tournament win? Will Lev Aronian defend his 2012 title? Will Hikaru Nakamura repeat his 2011 triumph? Or will another player take the spoils? Sound off in the comments...
