The 2012 Tata Steel Chess Tournament was the 74th incarnation of the Wijk aan Zee chess tournaments, which date back to 1938. The Group A tournament featured a total of 14 players, including seven of the top ten players on the January 2012 FIDE Rating List.
Heading into the tournament, the favorites in most eyes were likely the two highest-rated players in the world: Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Levon Aronian of Armenia. In particularly, Carlsen was the subject of attention due to his high rating of 2835, which gave him an outside chance at passing Garry Kasparov's all-time highest rating of 2851 should he have a particularly outstanding tournament.
In the end, though, it was Aronian who took top honors with a score of 9/13. Although Aronian suffered a loss in his head-to-head matchup with Carlsen, and was surprised in the late rounds by the struggling David Navara (which was, incidentally, Navara's only win of the tournament), he was otherwise brilliant throughout the event, scoring seven wins and four draws to take first place by a full point over Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana.
The win was Aronian's third first place finish at a Wijk aan Zee chess tournament. However, it was the first time he had won the tournament outright; previously, he had shared first place with Veselin Topalov and Teimour Radjabov in 2007 and with Magnus Carlsen in 2008.
Tournament Implications
Of course, Aronian could be pleased with his result, as he had won another major tournament. However, several other players could also point to their results with pride, while others suffered definite disappointments.
On the positive side, Caruana's second place finish firmly established himself as a rising star in the world of elite chess. According to the Live Chess Ratings kept at 2700chess.com, Caruana exited the tournament as the 10th ranked player in the world - a great accomplishment for the 19-year-old Italian grandmaster.
Hikaru Nakamura was also likely to be pleased by his 7.5/13 performance. After struggling in events leading up to the Tata Steel tournament, Nakamura acquitted himself well in Wijk aan Zee, beating up on the lower half of the table while holding his own against the leaders, suffering just one loss against Aronian.
At the bottom of the table, Boris Gelfand may have been quite disappointed at his 10th place finish. Gelfand, preparing for a World Championship match against Viswanathan Anand, might have hoped to gain some momentum with a good result here. Veselin Topalov had an uncharacteristically poor tournament, scoring just 5/14, while Anish Giri's 4.5/14 score was disappointing for a player who had shown great improvement over the last year.
Tournament Results
- Levon Aronian - 9
- Magnus Carlsen - 8
- Teimour Radjabov - 8
- Fabiano Caruana - 8
- Vassily Ivanchuk - 7.5
- Hikaru Nakamura - 7.5
- Gata Kamsky - 7
- Sergey Karjakin - 6.5
- Loek Van Wely - 5.5
- Boris Gelfand - 5
- Veselin Topalov - 5
- David Navara - 4.5
- Anish Giri - 4.5
Group B Winner: Pentala Harikrishna
Group C Winner: Maim Turov
As is traditional in the Wijk aan Zee tournaments, the Group B winner will likely receive an invitation to next year's Group A Tournament, and the Group C winner will receive an invitation to next year's Group B Tournament.
