Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, the “chess Wimbledon”, has been sponsored for all its 88 years by the local steelworks, either in its previous incarnations as Hoogovens and Corus or under its current Indian management.
Its relations with the local community have previously been good, but this year protesters targeting Tata Steel drew attention to the company’s heavy use of coal by dumping two tons of it in front of the entrance, and draping a banner reading “No chess on a dead planet” over the sports hall. Play in the opening round eventually began one and a half hours late.
Wijk aan Zee 2026 is missing the world top three of Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, but includes five of the next six in Vincent Keymer, Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and the world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju.
There are also four of the eight Candidates participants who will meet in March for the right to challenge later this year for Gukesh’s crown. Wijk aan Zee has changed its time limit to synchronise with the Candidates. There are two hours for the first 40 moves with no per move increment, followed by 30 minutes plus 30 seconds a move to finish the game.
Hans Niemann was the fastest winner in the opening round, scoring in just 15 moves when Vladimir Fedoseev resigned after apparently overlooking that his planned 15…Na6 was refuted by 16 Ne5!
In round four, Javokhir Sindarov won a classic brilliancy against Matthias Blübaum with 24…Nd3! leading to mate or decisive material gain. Also in round four, Niemann gave up his queen for rook and bishop to win an impressive strategic game against India’s Chithambaram Aravindh.
After five rounds of the Tata Steel Masters, Niemann (US), Sindarov and Nodirbek Abdusattorov (both Uzbekistan) lead on 3.5/5, ahead of Gukesh (India), Fedoseev (Slovenia) and Jorden van Foreest (Netherlands) all 3.
The Argentinian prodigy Faustino Oro, 12, jointly leads the Challengers on 4/5, level with Aydin Suleymanli (Azerbaijan) and 15-year-old Andy Woodward (US), and won a fine game with a double exchange sacrifice.
Wijk aan Zee continues daily at 1pm GMT, with rest days on 26 and 29 January. Games can be followed live and free on lichess, chess.com, and the official site, where the commentators are England’s GM Simon Williams and IM Jovanka Houska.
The Bob Wade Memorial, a grandmaster tournament named after arenowned personality of English and New Zealander chess, ended in Auckland with a rare English double. Michael Adams, the reigning and nine-time British champion, won with 6.5/9, half a point ahead of GM Dan Fernandez. Both were unbeaten and in the ninth and final round Adams held out for a draw after pressure from Fernandez. Adams won a spectacular brilliancy, including a queen sacrifice, in round two.
New Zealand’s No 1, Felix Xie, 17, tied for third on 5/9 with Hungary’s GM Gabor Nagy. It was an IM norm for Xie, but he does not need it as he is already awaiting Fide ratification of his outright IM title, earned by winning the Oceania under-20 championship.
Overall, 30 of the 45 games were drawn, some of them after just a perfunctory skirmish. Bob Wade, one of whose favourite phrases was “You gotta play sharp”, would not have approved. Wade always took the fight to his opponents, however eminent, and his upset win against Viktor Korchnoi at Buenos Aires 1960 was typical of his fearless approach. It was Wade who trained the five promising juniors identified in 1972 by Jim Slater, who all became grandmaster leaders of the “English chess explosion”. Wade’s personal library at his Blackheath home was always available to researchers and he contributed to English chess in many other ways.
The event was organised by Paul Spiller, vice-president of Fide’s Oceania zone and New Zealand’s top organiser, and supported by the charitable Middle Game Chess Foundation.
4008: 1…Qh1! and White resigned. If 2 Bxh1 Rxd1 mate, so the best White can do is 2 Qxd2 cxd2 3 Kb2 Rxd1 4 Bxh1 Rxh1 when Black’s d2 pawn queens.
