The echo of an amazing 2016 still reverberates, with the World Championship Match and the final fireworks in Doha, Qatar with the World Rapid and Blitz Championships.

But the chess circus never sleeps, and 2017 is going to open with the traditional super-tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. Play starts January the 14th to the 29th, at 7:30 am EST (13:30 CET, 12:30 UK). The 79th edition of the Tata Steel chess festival is one of those events that no chess aficionado wants to miss.

This year the line-up is extremely interesting, with five of the top guys ready to descend from the Grand Chess Tour Olympus and land on Earth, where 8 strong opponents are waiting to battle over the board.

Magnus Carlsen is called to defend the title and win the tournament for the third time in a row. It will be a pleasure for the fans to see Carlsen, So, Aronian, Karjakin, and Giri deal with interesting players such as Nepomniachtchi, Wojtaszek, Rapport, Adhiban; the young Wey Yi, who is thought to be a future world title challenger;  solid and strong GMs like Eljanov, Harikrishna and Andreikin; and last but not least the Dutch lion, Loek Van Wely.

ICC offers its members a video recap service, with its team of amazing commentators. The video recaps are sponsored by the best chess magazine you can find out there, New In Chess. Each round a lucky ICC member will win a one-year subscription to the amazing magazine! Now also available in Digital format!

 

Player Country Rating Magnus Carlsen  Norway 2840 Wesley So  USA 2801 Levon Aronian  Armenia 2785 Karjakin Sergey  Russia 2785 Anish Giri  Netherlands 2771 Pentala Harikrishna  India 2770 Ian Nepomniachtchi  Russia 2767 Pavel Eljanov  Ukraine 2765 Radoslaw Wojtaszek  Poland 2749 Dmitri Andreikin  Russia 2737 Richard Rapport  Hungary 2717 Yi Wei  China 2707 Loek Van Wely  Netherlands 2696 Bakaran Adhiban  India 2666