Tata Steel Chess Tournament

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is an annual chess tournament held in January in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. It was called the Hoogovens Tournament from its creation in 1938 until the sponsor Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Steel to form the Corus Group in 1999, after which the tournament was called the Corus Chess Tournament. Corus Group became Tata Steel Europe in 2007. Despite the name changes, the series is numbered sequentially from its Hoogovens beginnings; for example, the 2011 event was referred to as the 73rd Tata Steel Chess Tournament.

Top grandmasters compete in the tournament, but regular club players are welcome to play as well. The Masters group pits fourteen of the world's best against each other in a round-robin tournament, and has sometimes been described as the " Wimbledon of Chess". Since 1938, there has been a long list of famous winners, including Max Euwe, Bent Larsen, Tigran Petrosian, Paul Keres, Lajos Portisch, Boris Spassky, Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Viktor Korchnoi, Jan Timman, Anatoly Karpov, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Vladimir Kramnik, Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, and Magnus Carlsen. Of the nine World Chess Champions since the first tournament in 1938, only three --Alexander Alekhine, Vasily Smyslov and Bobby Fischer —have not won it. In 2001, nine of the top ten players in the world participated.

Magnus Carlsen holds the record for most wins at the tournament, with eight titles to his name. Viswanathan Anand is the only other player to have won the event five or more times, and also holds the record of most consecutive games played at the tournament without a loss (7 – from 1998 to 2004).

Tournament history

Hoogovens Beverwijk

The early tournaments were very small, starting with groups of four in 1938, and entry restricted to Dutch players. The first five tournaments continued this way, with the contest held annually early in January. In 1943 and 1944 the tournament field was doubled in size to eight players. No tournament was held in 1945 due to World War II. The first international tournament was held in 1946. The main tournament field was expanded to ten, with invitations to Alberic O'Kelly de Galway (Belgium) and Gösta Stoltz (Sweden) along with a Dutch contingent of eight.

The tournament field remained at ten until 1953 when it was increased to twelve, and an international women's tournament was also held. In 1954 the tournament field was returned to ten players, but the strength of the competitions increased. The field was greatly enlarged to 18 in 1963, and although it reduced to 16 in 1964, the event had become the strongest international chess tournament in the world .

As the tournament grew in stature, the ancillary women's tournament became a regular feature, as did a 'Masters' event and 'Masters Reserves' events. There also began a tradition to operate a year on year invitation policy that resembled the system used in football 'league tables'; the winner of a lesser category event would receive an invitation to the next higher event the following year.

The 1946 tournament was one of the first European international chess tournaments after World War II. Food shortages were still a problem in Europe, so the post-tournament banquet featured pea soup, inexpensive fare of the common people. In subsequent years pea soup has been served as the first course of the concluding banquet, a tradition continued when the tournament was moved from Beverwijk to Wijk aan Zee .

Winners of the top group:
*1938 – Jilling Van Dijk and Philip Bakker
*1939 – Nicolaas Cortlever
*1940 – Max Euwe
*1941 – Arthur Wijnans
*1942 – Max Euwe (2)
*1943 – Arnold van den Hoek
*1944 – Theo van Scheltinga
*1945 – no tournament
*1946 – Alberic O'Kelly de Galway
*1947 – Theo van Scheltinga (2)
*1948 – Lodewijk Prins
*1949 – Savielly Tartakower
*1950 – Jan Hein Donner
*1951 – Hermann Pilnik
*1952 – Max Euwe (3)
*1953 – Nicolas Rossolimo
*1954 – Hans Bouwmeester and Vasja Pirc
*1955 – Borislav Milić
*1956 – Gideon Ståhlberg
*1957 – Aleksandar Matanović
*1958 – Max Euwe (4) and Jan Hein Donner (2)
*1959 – Friðrik Ólafsson
*1960 – Bent Larsen and Tigran Petrosian
*1961 – Bent Larsen (2) and Borislav Ivkov
*1962 – Petar Trifunović
*1963 – Jan Hein Donner (3)
*1964 – Paul Keres and Iivo Nei
*1965 – Lajos Portisch and Efim Geller
*1966 – Lev Polugaevsky
*1967 – Boris Spassky

Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee

The tournament was moved to the Dutch seaside town Wijk aan Zee in 1968.
In this period, the tournament was popularly called both "Hoogovens" and "Wijk aan Zee".
Winners of the Grandmaster A group since 1968 have been:
*1968 – Viktor Korchnoi
*1969 – Mikhail Botvinnik and Efim Geller (2)
*1970 – Mark Taimanov
*1971 – Viktor Korchnoi (2)
*1972 – Lajos Portisch (2)
*1973 – Mikhail Tal
*1974 – Walter Browne
*1975 – Lajos Portisch (3)
*1976 – Ljubomir Ljubojević and Friðrik Ólafsson (2)
*1977 – Genna Sosonko and Efim Geller (3)
*1978 – Lajos Portisch (4)
*1979 – Lev Polugaevsky (2)
*1980 – Walter Browne (2) and Yasser Seirawan
*1981 – Genna Sosonko (2) and Jan Timman
*1982 – John Nunn and Yuri Balashov
* 1983 – Ulf Andersson
*1984 – Alexander Beliavsky and Viktor Korchnoi (3)
*1985 – Jan Timman (2)
*1986 – Nigel Short
* 1987 – Nigel Short (2) and Viktor Korchnoi (4)
* 1988 – Anatoly Karpov
*1989 – Viswanathan Anand, Predrag Nikolić, Zoltán Ribli and Gyula Sax
*1990 – John Nunn (2)
*1991 – John Nunn (3)
*1992 – Valery Salov and Boris Gelfand
* 1993 – Anatoly Karpov (2)
*1994 – Predrag Nikolić (2)
*1995 – Alexey Dreev
*1996 – Vasyl Ivanchuk
*1997 – Valery Salov (2)
*1998 – Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand (2)
*1999 – Garry Kasparov

Corus tournament

From 2000, the popular name for the tournament was more or less equally shared between "Wijk aan Zee" and "Corus".
*2000 – Garry Kasparov (2)
*2001 – Garry Kasparov (3)
*2002 – Evgeny Bareev
*2003 – Viswanathan Anand (3)
*2004 – Viswanathan Anand (4)
*2005 – Peter Leko
*2006 – Viswanathan Anand (5) and Veselin Topalov
*2007 – Levon Aronian, Veselin Topalov (2) and Teimour Radjabov
*2008 – Levon Aronian (2) and Magnus Carlsen
*2009 – Sergey Karjakin
*2010 – Magnus Carlsen (2)

Tata Steel tournament

From 2011, the popular name for the tournament was changed from 'Corus' to 'Tata Steel'.
*2011 – Hikaru Nakamura
*2012 – Levon Aronian (3)
*2013 – Magnus Carlsen (3)
*2014 – Levon Aronian (4)
*2015 – Magnus Carlsen (4)
*2016 – Magnus Carlsen (5)
*2017 – Wesley So
*2018 – Magnus Carlsen (6)
*2019 – Magnus Carlsen (7)
*2020 – Fabiano Caruana
*2021 – Jorden van Foreest
* 2022 – Magnus Carlsen (8)

Multiple winners

Until recently, players ending on the same score shared the title.

The first tie-break was held in 2018, with Magnus Carlsen defeating Anish Giri 1½–½. The two players sharing first place after the regular games play two Blitz games and then possibly also an Armageddon game to decide a sole winner.

Event crosstables

1980s

Event crosstables 1983 and following: Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee Chess Tournament 1983

1990s

Event crosstables 1990 and following: Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee Chess Tournament 1990

2000s

2003

:

:

:

2004

:

:

:

2005

:

:

:

2006

:

:

:

2007

:

:

:

2008

The 2008 Corus Chess Tournament took place in the De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee. The format of each of the three Grandmaster groups remained a 14 player single round robin. The participants in group A included eight of the world's top ten players (country, October 2007 rating and rank in brackets): Viswanathan Anand (India, 2801, 1), Vasyl Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2787, 2), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2785, 3), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria, 2769, 4), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2755, 5=), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 2752, 7), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan, 2742, 8) and Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2741, 9). The remaining players were Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2736, 11), Michael Adams (England, 2729, 13), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2714, 16=), Judit Polgár (Hungary, 2708, 20), Pavel Eljanov (Ukraine, 2691, 26) and Loek van Wely (Netherlands, 2679, 31). The average rating of 2742 made it a Category 20 tournament. The only top ten players not participating were Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2755, 5=) and Alexei Shirov (Spain, 2739, 10).

The tournament was won by Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen (both scoring 8 out of 13).

Grandmaster group B was won by Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia with 9½ points, and group C by Italy's Fabiano Caruana with 10, two points ahead of his nearest rival. The Honorary group, a new category consisting of four former A group champions playing a double round robin, was won by Ljubomir Ljubojević with 4 points out of 6, ahead of Jan Timman, Viktor Korchnoi and Lajos Portisch.

:

:

:

:

2009

:

:

:

2010s

2010

:

:

:

2011

:

:

:

2012

:

:

:

2013

:

:

:

2014

:

:

2015

:

:

2016

:

:

2017

:

:

2018

:
* Final blitz tie-break: Magnus Carlsen def. Anish Giri, 1½–½.

:

2019

Magnus Carlsen was the winner of this tournament, with a score of 9/13.

2020s

2020

Fabiano Caruana was the winner of this tournament, with a score of 10/13.

2021

Jorden van Foreest was the winner of this tournament, with a score of 8.5/13. He defeated Anish Giri in an Armageddon playoff.

2022

Magnus Carlsen was the winner of this tournament, with a score of 9.5/13.

See also

* List of strong chess tournaments

References

Notes

Bibliography

*
*

External links

*

{{Chess tournaments

Tata Steel Europe
Chess competitions
Chess in the Netherlands
International sports competitions hosted by the Netherlands
1938 establishments in the Netherlands
Recurring sporting events established in 1938
Sports competitions in North Holland
Sport in Beverwijk