Many specialists describe Tata Steel as the “Roland Garros of chess”. It has been played since 1938 (except in 1945 because of the war). Many of the best in history have played in it, including world champions such as: Max Euwe, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spaski, Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Anatoli Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, Gari Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, and of course the last champion, Magnus Carlsen.

The 2023 edition of this tournament will be characterized by including many young talents, such as Gukesh, 16; Praggnanandhaa, 17, Vincent Keymer and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 18; and Arjun Erigaisi, 19. 5 of the 14 contestants are players under the age of 20, which makes Niemann’s absence all the more surprising.

Niemann out the 2023 Tata Steel tournament

Another young talent who will also not be at this tournament is Alireza Firouzja, who fell out with the event organizers after a controversial finale to the 2021 tournament. Niemann’s case, however, has been much worse, as it is a problem that started. at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, in which Magnus Carlsen accused the American of cheating.

Since then, other GMs have shown their distrust of Niemann, the most notable being Hikaru Nakamura. In addition, the Chess.com website published a report on alleged cheating in online games by the young American, who in turn filed a defamation lawsuit.

According to the Chess24.com website: “Hans Niemann claimed in his $100 million lawsuit (which he brought against Carlsen, Nakamura, and Chess.com, among others) that negotiations with the organizers stopped after the events in St. Louis.”

For this reason, the world championship must be defined by the champion and runner-up of the 2022 Candidates Tournament. And precisely one of those players will participate in Tata Steel. The Chinese Ding Liren is one of the main candidates, together with Carlsen, to win this tournament, so the Wenzhou-born player will have to be closely watched.

The 2023 edition will be marked by young talent, since several of the participants were child prodigies who little by little stop being promises to become reality. Gukesh, 16, Praggnanandhaa, 17, Vincent Keymer and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 18, and Arjun Erigaisi, 19. In this section there could also be, although they won’t, Hans Niemann (due to what happened after St. Louis) and Alireza Firouzja (who fell out with the organizers after the event’s controversial final in 2021).

The Masters Tournament participants

There will be a total of 14 players, including three Americans: Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Levon Aronian. Iranian Parham Maghsoodloo will replace Polish Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The full list of players is as follows:

Magnus Carlsen
Ding Liren
Fabiano Caruana
Anish Giri
Wesley So
Richard Rapport
Levon Aronian
Dommaraju Gukesh
Parham Maghsoodloo
Arjun Erigaisi
Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Vincent Keymer
Jorden van Foreest
R Praggnanandhaa

Start of the tournament and first round

The tournament begins on January 13 and ends on the 29th of the same month. A total of 13 rounds will be played all against all and the winner will be the one who obtains the most points. However, on January 13 there will be no activity on the board, but the opening ceremony will take place and the games begin on Saturday the 14th. The clashes are not yet defined, but they will surely be determined in the next few hours.

Magnus Carlsen started 2022 brilliantly. After the match against Ian Niepomniachtchi in which he retained his world title, the Norwegian had expressed two things that shook the chess world: the first (and most important) was that if the title challenger within 2 years it was not the French of Iranian descent Alireza Firouzja, he would give up his title; and the second one was that had the intention of reaching 2900 elo points. Obviously, winning this tournament brings him closer to that goal.

The curious thing is that, despite the fact that Magnus Carlsen had a brilliant tournament, his victory came earlier because his opponent in the last game, Daniil Dubov, will not show up to play (belowwe will explain why). In round 12, the Norwegian defeated Fabiano Caruana and thus reached 8 ½ points, which will be 9 ½ due to the absence of Dubov, a score that none of his pursuers (Mamedyarov and Rapport) will be able to match even if they won their last game in round 13.

The controversies of Tata Steel 2022

In this Tata Steel 2022 there were two controversies. Actually, maybe it was only one, because the first one had to do with the anger of several fans at Magnus Carlsen for his attitude in the round 10 game against Sergey Karjakin. After only 16 moves, and with almost all the pieces still on the board, the chess players repeated moves and agreed to draw.

That result favored Carlsen, who at thattime was leading the tournament. However, not a few people were outraged by the passive attitude of the world champion who, it must be said, did not use any illegal means to obtain a beneficial result. The controversy was rather on the internet, where several fans understood it was a “cowardly” attitude on the part of the champion.

The other controversy involves Daniil Dubov (who was recently the victim of the anger of several Russian chess players for being part of Team Carlsen in the Norwegian’s match against his compatriot Ian Niepomniachtchi), who lost his seventh round game by forfeit after refusing to wear a mask due to having been in close contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19.

The Russian’s decision had, as expected, reactions for and against. The regulations do not oblige players to use the mask during games. On the other hand, the result of his PCR was not yet known and as a matter of principle, Dubov declined to play with a mask. The truth is that after playing round 10, his PCR was positive (although initially it had been negative) so he withdrew from the tournament without playing the last three games, one of which would be against Magnus Carlsen in round 13.