Tata Steel Chess India Tournament will be held in Kolkata from 7 to 11 January next year. World champion D Gukesh is one of the biggest names playing in this tournament. This will be Gukesh’s second event in India after winning the World Championship in Singapore last year. This time Vishwanathan Anand will also enter the Tata Steel Chess Tournament. 5-time world champion Vishwanathan Anand was the ambassador of this tournament for the last few years.
Anand will compete with his disciples
Vishwanathan Anand is returning to the Tata Steel Chess Tournament after 6 years. This time he will face D Gukesh and his other former disciples. Anand, who last played the tournament in 2019, will be back against the new generation of Indian stars, with Gukesh at the forefront. Anand has closely mentored Gukesh in recent years at his Westbridge Anand Chess Academy. This will be the first time that these two world champions will face each other in an individual tournament on Indian soil.
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Tata Steel Chess India will be held at ‘Dhono Dhanyo Auditorium’ with both Open and Women categories in both Rapid and Blitz formats with equal prize money for both categories. The Open category will also feature a strong Indian contingent including FIDE World Cup runner-up Wei Yi, former US champion Wesley So, Hannes Niemann, Volodar Murzin and R Praggnananda and Arjun Erigesy. Other Indians include Vidit Gujarati, Arvind Chidambaram, Divya Deshmukh, Vaishali R, Vantika Agarwal and Rakshita Ravi.
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Who is in the women’s category?
In the women’s category, World Cup winner Divya along with former World Championship challengers Alexandra Goryachkina, Katarina Legno, Nena Djagnidze, Dee Harika and Carissa Yip will be the main attractions. Excited about his comeback as a player, Anand said, ‘There has been a huge change in the world of chess with the emergence of talented players all over the world including India.’ He said in the press release, ‘I am very excited to accept the challenge of young veteran chess players in this big tournament of India.’
Tata Steel Vice President (Corporate Services) DB Sundar Ramam said Anand’s return has added a special dimension to the competition. Tournament Director Dibyendu Barua said that the tournament has become one of the premier chess tournaments globally and Anand facing his students and disciples is symbolic of passing the torch in Indian chess to the next generation.
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