Round Eight at the annual Tata Steel Tournament will today be played in Dorpshuis de Moriaan, Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. Some of the most efficient and successful chess grandmothers are participating and have been facing away since the tournament began on January 16.
Among them are World Champion Magnus Carlsen, world No. 2 player Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Pentala Harikrishna, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Alireza Firouzja. The Tata Steel Tournament is a unique 14-member grandmaster confrontation by invitation only. Grandmothers play traditional chess overboard.
In today’s round Vachier-Lagrave will face Jorden Van Foreest, Alexander Donchenko playing against Aryan Tari, Duda against David Anton Guijarro, Harikrishna against Firouzja, Andrey Esipenko playing Carlsen, Nils Grandelius against Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and Caruana will play the part of Giri.
The current tournament is the 83rd version of the Tata Steel Masters which began in 1938. It was canceled only once at the end of World War II in 1945. It is one of the world’s leading chess tournaments with many prestigious awards.
Carlsen has so far won the tournament seven times, overtaking Viswanathan Anand, who is not a participant this year. The number of high-scoring players is reducing in 2021 due to reduced travel from some countries due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Guyana 2020 National Chess Championship kicks off next weekend as well with over the top competition. Ten people have qualified to take part.