Tata Steel Chess 2022: All The Information

GM Magnus Carlsen won the 2022 Tata Steel Masters Tournament with a score of 9.5/13, which is his record-breaking eighth win at this prestigious tournament. GMs Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Richard Rapport both scored 8/13.

In the Challengers Tournament, GM Arjun Erigaisi won with a score of 10.5/13 which was a full two points ahead of GMs Thai Dai Van Nguyen and Jonas Buhl Bjerre.

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands, is one of the most distinguished over-the-board tournaments in all of chess. Held annually in January, the dates for the 2022 tournament were January 15-30.

Most years there are multiple tournaments held concurrently. Historically, the winner of the second-level tournament (formerly Group B, now known today as the Challengers) advances to the next year's top division, the Masters (formerly Group A).

• Broadcast
• Schedule & Pairings
• Final Standings
• Location
• Format
• Players
• Regulations
• History
• Vote Chess Contest

Broadcast

The games of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament were broadcasted here: Masters | Challengers. The live broadcast was on Chess.com/TV and on our Twitch and YouTube channels. Among our commentators were GM Daniel Naroditsky, GM Robert Hess, and WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni.

Schedule And Pairings

The 2022 Tata Steel Chess Tournament rand January 14-30, 2022. Games began January 15 with rest days on the 19th, 24th, and 27th of the month.

The lower-rated Challengers tournament returns in 2022 after a hiatus in 2021. Other than the Masters and Challengers tournaments, there are no on-site events for 2022.

Pairings Masters

Pairings Challengers

FInal Standings

Final standings for the Masters section:

FInal standings for the Challengers section:

Location

The tournament is held every year in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands, a small resort town on the North Sea.

Format

The tournament is a single round-robin. Everyone plays each other once for a total of 13 rounds.

In each game, the players get 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20, and 15 minutes for the remainder of the game. There is a 30-second increment throughout.

New this year is that a tie for first is broken by a tiebreak among all players who finish in clear first place. More novelties in the tiebreak procedure:

• The single armageddon game has been changed for potentially multiple sudden-death games. For instance, if two players tie for first, they will first play two 3+2 blitz games but if they tie 1-1, they will continue playing sudden-death games (alternating colors) until there is a decisive game.
• The time control of the sudden-death game(s) is two and a half minutes for White and three minutes for Black with a two-second increment per move.

Here are more details about the tiebreak procedure.

Players

The field consists of 14 players. At least one Dutch player participates every year and GM Anish Giri was the first player to be confirmed for 2022. An additional 12 players were announced on October 26, 2021, with GM Vidit Gujrathi completing the field on November 23. Most years, the winner of the previous Challengers Tournament also plays in the Masters, but there was no Challengers Tournament in 2021. 

The complete field is below (rating and ranking from the official January 2022 FIDE list).

The Challengers field is available here. 

Regulations

Regulations can be found here.

History

The tournament was first played in 1938 as a local Dutch tournament. It has been held every year since except for 1945, during which time it grew into a major international event. Originally played in Beverwijk, it moved to Wijk aan Zee in 1968. The sponsor has also evolved, from Hoogovens in 1938, to Corus in 1999, and finally, Tata Steel starting in 2011.

From 1938-2021, GM Magnus Carlsen (7) and GM Viswanathan Anand (5) have the most tournament victories. Four players are tied just below them at four wins: GMs Levon Aronian, Max Euwe, Viktor Korchnoi, and Lajos Portisch.

Every tournament champion since it became known as Tata Steel in 2011 is below. The full list is at the Tata Steel Chess website.