TATA Steel 2024

January means Tata Steel, one of the year's most important tournaments.

Play starts January 13, at 8 AM EST, 14:00 local (Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Berlin), 13:00 UTC.
The rest days are January 17, 22 and 25
The tournament is a round-robin with 14 players (13 rounds). Time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move from move one.

The nice (and cold) small town in the north of the country, Wijk aan Zee, hosts the blazoned event at its 86th edition.

Wijk aan Zee - Source: wikipedia.org

Anish Giri, the Dutch super grandmaster, will be there to defend his title.
The line-up is impressive, with a rating average of 2712 (category 19).
Magnus won't be in Wijk aan Zee, but there is a lot of interest in the "return" of the reigning World Champion after months of being afar from the chess scene.
GM Liren Ding is indeed the first seed, and it'll be great to see him play again.
Another note of interest is the participation in the Master tournament of the Chinese GM Ju Wenjun, the current World Champion!

GM Ju Wenjun, reigning World Champion - Photo: Andreas Kontokanis . Source: Wikipedia.org

Last but not least, US Hans Niemann is the top seed in the Challenger tournament.

In Wijk aan Zee, there will be THREE World Champions playing: Liren Ding, Ju Wenjun, and the French Junior World Champion Marc’Andria Maurizzi (in the Challengers event).

Here is the official Tata Steel clip announcing the participants in the Master event:



LINE UP - MASTERS

Player	Federation	Rating
Ding Liren	China	2780
Ian Nepomniachtchi	FIDE	2769
Alireza Firouzja	France	2759
Anish Giri	Nederlands	2749
Praggnanandhaa R	India	2743
Santosh Gujrathi Vidit	India	2742
Parham Maghsoodloo	Iran	2740
Wei Yi	China	2740
Nodirbek Abdusattorov	Uzbekistan	2727
Gukesh D	India	2725
Jorden Van Foreest	Nederlands	2682
Alexander Donchenko	Germany	2643
Max Warmerdam	Nederlands	2625
Ju Wenjun	China	2549