2013-01-25

Like one of those busy Pieter Bruegel peasant harvest paintings that seem to be breaking out of the frame, the annual blowout Tata Steel Chess Tournament at the Dutch coastal city of Wijk aan Zee features an almost overflowing bounty of chess. There’s a huge nine-round Swiss event for amateurs, a seven-round rapid tournament and, of course, three — count ‘em, three — 14-player invitational round-robin tournaments in which the weakest “C� tournament boasts six chess grandmasters and an average rating of over 2460. Most of the focus has been on the premiere “A� section, which is understandable since this year’s field includes world chess champion Viswanathan Anand of India, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, the top-rated chess ...

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