15 January 2021

Tata Steel Chess Tournament Begins in Wijk aan Zee

Russia is represented by Andrey Esipenko.

Photo: Official website
Photo: Official website


The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is taking place in Wijk aan Zee on January 15-31. This year, only the Masters event will be held without spectators.  

The Tata Steel Masters, the 13-round all-play-all event, features the world champion Magnus Carlsen (2862, Norway), Fabiano Caruana (2823, USA), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2784, France), Anish Giri (2764, Netherlands), Alireza Firouzja (2749, FIDE), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2743, Poland), Pentala Harikrishna (2732, India), Radoslaw Wojtaszek (2705, Poland), David Anton (2679, Spain), Andrey Esipenko (2677, Russia), Jorden Van Foreest (2671, Netherlands), Alexander Donchenko (2668, Germany), Nils Grandelius (2663, Sweden), and Aryan Tari (2625, Norway).

Round 1 pairings:

Harikrishna - Vachier-Lagrave, Esipenko - Duda, Grandelius - Donchenko, Caruana - Van Foreest, Giri - Tari, Wojtaszek - Anton, Carlsen - Firuozja.

The match day are January 16-19, 21-24, 26-27, and 29-31. Rest days are January 20, 25, and 28. The rounds start at 4 PM (Moscow time), while the final round begins at 3 PM (Moscow time). 

Time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move. 

In case two players share first place in the Masters (if more players share the first prize, the first two players will be selected according to the tiebreak criteria), they will play a tie-break after the last round.

Official website