(1537) MAGNUS CARLSEN WINS TATA STEEL CHESS TOURNAMENT 2018

   MAGNUS CARLSEN WINS TATA STEEL
           CHESS TOURNAMENT 2018

If GM Wesley So won the strongest tournament in the world, the 2017 Tata Steel Chess Tournament, this year, the current world chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway won this prestigious tourney after an exciting last round.

At the start of the matches, five Grand Masters still stood a chance of winning, with Anish Giri and Carlsen leading the pack.

Because both of their games ended in a draw, they had to play a tiebreak, consisting of 2 blitz game (5 minutes for each player with 3 extra seconds per move), which was won by Carlsen.

This is Carlsen's 6th trophy from Wijk-aan Zee.

3rd place went to Vladimir Kramnik, thanks to the better additional criteria since he tied with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who had the same score of 8.5 points out of 13 games.

THE RESULTS:
1. Giri, Anish (9 pts. --2752 Rating) 2. Carlsen, Magnus (9 pts. --2834) 3. Kramnik, Vladimir (8.5--2787) 4. Mamedyarov (8.5--2804) 5. Anand, Viswanathan (8.0--2767) 6. So, Wesley (8.0--2792) 7. Karjakin, Sergey (7.5--2753) 8. Svidler, Peter (6.0--2768) 9. Wei, Yi (5.5--2743) 10. Jones, Gawain C B (5.0--2640) 11. Caruana, Fabiano (5.0--2811) 12. Matlakov, Maxim (5.0--2718) 13. Adhiban, B (3.5--2655) 14. Hou, Yifan (2.5--2680)

Vidit Gujrathi (India) has won the Tata Steel Challengers, thus earning a promotion to the Tata Steel 2019. Vidit justified the starting position scoring 9 points out of 13 games, and finishing the event as sole first with a whole point ahead of the runner-ups.

Last year, Gawain Jones won the Tata Steel Challengers and finished a decent 10th place despite being the lowest rated.

Stefan Kuipers the Top Nine Round event, earning a spot to the Tata Steel Challengers next year.

This year, the Tata Steel Chess, often called as "Wimbledon of Chess", celebrated its 80th anniversary and took place in a coastal village of Wijk-aan Zee, north Holland, with locations of the playing venues: Beeld en Geluid, in Hilversum and the Academy building of the University of Groningen. 

Tata Steel Chess 2018 gathered thousands of chess lovers, top world Grandmasters, visitors, 1800 participants of the various tournaments of Tata Steel events with the unique opportunity for the amateurs and the youngest to play chess in the same venue as their chess idols. 

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2019 will take place from 11-27 January 2019.

Photo credits: Tata Steel Chess. For info about the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, go to www.tatasteelchess.com.