Today will see Round Eight in the annual Tata Steel Tournament being played in Dorpshuis de Moriaan, Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. Some of the most efficient and successful chess grandmasters are participants and have been facing off since the tournament began on January 16.
Among them are World Champion Magnus Carlsen, the world’s number 2 player, Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Pentala Harikrishna, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Alireza Firouzja. The Tata Steel Tournament is a 14-member exclusive grandmaster clash by invitation only. Grandmasters are playing traditional over-the-board chess.
Today’s round will see Vachier-Lagrave facing Jorden Van Foreest, Alexander Donchenko playing against Aryan Tari, Duda versus David Anton Guijarro, Harikrishna against Firouzja, Andrey Esipenko will play Carlsen, Nils Grandelius against Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and Caruana will play Giri.
The current tournament is the 83rd version of the Tata Steel Masters which began in 1938. It was cancelled only once at the conclusion of World War II in 1945. It is one of the world’s premier chess tournaments with a number of fabulous prizes.
To date Carlsen has won the tournament seven times, overtaking Viswanathan Anand, who is not a participant this year. The number of highly ranked players is lessened in 2021 owing to the curtailment of travel from some countries because of ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the 2020 Guyana National Chess Championship begins next weekend also with over-the-board competition. Ten persons have qualified to participate.
