Saturday 13 January 2018

Tata Steel 2018

After two weeks of watching chess during the day, now it is back to two weeks of watching chess late at night. The 2018 Tata Steel event has just begun (15 minutes ago!), with the heavyweight clash of Carlsen v Caruana first up. The 14 player round robin also has Kramnik, Giri, So, Anand in the field, so there should be plenty of good games each round.
This tournament should also provide something of a preview for the upcoming Candidates tournament with a few of Carlsen's likely challengers in the field. It may be an opportunity for them to both test Carlsen, as well as try and get a physiological edge over each other. Of course Carlsen could use the tournament to repeat Capablanca's dominant win in the 1927 New York tournament ( 2.5 points ahead of Alekhine), although if he does, he should hope that history does not repeat itself further, as Alekhine then defeated Capablanca for the World Championship title later that year.

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