 "Gukesh to make comeback at Tata Steel Chess 2025: Why Wijk aan Zee event is called 'Wimbledon' of chess")
Chess is set for its biggest event since the FIDE World Championship and the World Rapid and Blitz Championships last month, with the Tata Steel Chess set to get underway on Friday in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. And among the key talking points heading into the tournament is the fact that Gukesh Dommaraju will be making his first appearance in any tournament since becoming the new chess world champion in Singapore last month.
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Gukesh had a fairly busy 2024 – winning the Candidates Tournament and starring in India’s double gold in the Chess Olympiad besides defeating Chinese Grandmaster Ding Liren 7.5-6.5 in the World Championship . The 18-year-old enjoyed a month-long break after his historic triumph, during which he attended multiple felicitation programs and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Tamil film superstar Rajinikanth and business tycoon Gautam Adani.
With Gukesh well-rested after the World Championship, skipping the Rapid and Blitz worlds in New York City, he will be hoping to prove a point at the Tata Steel Chess, where he had finished runner-up last year. He will also be hoping to highlight the fact that he had earned the title of ‘world champion’ and not got it by fluke after criticism from the likes of Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik, who had questioned the quality of competition between Gukesh and Ding in Singapore.
Also Read | After a dream 2024, chess world champion Gukesh faces a tough 2025
But before we preview Gukesh’s chances in the tournament, we take a look at why Tata Steel Chess is known by some as the ‘Wimbledon of chess’.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsWhy Tata Steel Chess is among the most prestigious events in the sport
Few tournaments in chess carry as much history as the Tata Steel Chess; only the World Chess Championship and the Chess Olympiad, whose first editions took place in in 1886 and 1927 respectively. Tata Steel Chess began in 1938, a year before the Second World War broke out, and initially went by the name Hoogovens Tournament – named after Dutch steel producer Koninklijke Hoogovens.
It was renamed ‘Corus Chess Tournament’ in 1999 after Hoogovens’ merger with British Steel to form the Corus Group. The name ‘Tata Steel Chess’ came into existence in 2007 after Indian conglomerate Tata acquired Corus and renamed it ‘Tata Steel Europe’.
The reason why it has been compared with the prestigious grass-court Grand Slam in tennis is because it attracts the top grandmasters from all over the world along with emerging talents and thousands of amateur players, besides visitors.
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Reigning world No 1 and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen is the most successful player in the history of the tournament that takes place annually in the Dutch town of Wijk aan Zee, having won the tournament eight times between 2008 and 2022. His absence from this year’s edition – the 87th in the tournament’s history – however, has more to do with the fact that the 34-year-old Norwegian GM is “bored” with the Classical format and is focusing on fast-paced formats such as Rapid and Blitz as well as other formats such as “Freestyle Chess”.
Legends of the sport such as Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand, etc have won this tournament in the past with Indian legend Anand the second-most successful player with five titles.
How many other players are competing in Tata Steel Chess 2025?
With Carlsen’s name missing from the competitors’ list, world No 2 Fabiano Caruana leads the Masters’ section of the tournament this year. Also competing in the event are Arjun Erigaisi and world champion Gukesh, ranked fourth and fifth in the world respectively.
The other competitors are as follows – Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan), Wei Yi (China), Pentala Harikrishna (India), R Praggnanandhaa (India), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Vincent Keymer (Germany), Vladimir Fedoseev (Slovenia), Jorden van Foreest (Netherlands), Alexey Sarana (Serbia), Max Warmerdam (Netherlands), Leon Luke Mendonca (India).
Nearly half of the competitors in the Masters section this year are Indian, with Mendonca earning his spot after winning the Challengers event last year.
What is Gukesh’s schedule for Tata Steel Chess 2025?
The schedule for the Masters and Challengers sections for the 2025 Tata Steel Chess Tournament is yet to be announced by the organisers.
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