The participation of the Russian and Canadian grandmasters completes the field of participants of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2017. According to the agreement with players’ union ACP the last spots in the Tata Steel Masters and Tata Steel Challengers were to go to the highest ranked players of the ACP Competition with a rating below 2750 and 2650. But these grandmasters, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Gawain Jones, had already been confirmed as participants in theTata Steel Chess Tournament 2017. The 79th edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament takes place in Wijk aan Zee from 13 – 29 January 2017.

Dmitri Andreikin (26) ranks 22rd on the world list. Andreikin has belonged to the group of players right below the world top for years, but will participate for the first time in Wijk aan Zee in January. The Russian was youth world champion in 2010 and became Russian champion two years later. He qualified for the Candidates Tournament in 2013, which determines who will be allowed to challenge the world champion. In 2014 Andreikin won the Fide Grand Prix Tournament in Tashkent, surpassing players like Nakamura, Caruana, Vachier-Lagrave, Giri and Karjakin.

Canadian grandmaster Eric Hansen (24) is not only a strong chess player, but also appreciated for providing commentary at big tournaments. Hansen will participate in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament for the first time. He was one of the stars of the Chess Olympiad in Baku earlier this year, scoring 9 out of 11.

List of participants Tata Steel Masters 2017

Name Rating World ranking Country Magnus Carlsen 2840 1 Norway Wesley So 2794 5 United States Sergey Karjakin 2785 6 Russia Levon Aronian 2785 7 Armenia Anish Giri 2771 10 The Netherlands Pentala Harikrishna 2770 11 India Ian Nepomniachtchi 2767 13 Russia Pavel Eljanov 2762 14 Ukraine Radoslaw Wjtaszek 2749 18 Poland Dmitri Andreikin 2737 22 Russia Richard Rapport 2717 30 Hungary Wei Yi 2707 38 China Loek van Wely 2696 44 The Netherlands Adhiban Baskaran 2666 86 India

Average rating: 2753

List of participants Tata Steel Challengers 2017

Name Rating Year of birth Country Markus Ragger 2689 1988 Austria Ilia Smirin 2669 1968 Israel Gawain Jones 2667 1987 England Jeffery Xiong 2666 2000 United States Nils Grandelius 2643 1993 Sweden Lu Shanglei 2627 1995 China Jorden van Foreest 2605 1999 The Netherlands Erwin l'Ami 2605 1985 The Netherlands Eric Hansen 2603 1992 Canada Benjamin Bok 2598 1995 The Netherlands Aryan Tari 2584 1999 Norway Vladimir Dobrov 2499 1984 Russia Tingjie Lei 2468 1997 China Sopiko Guramishvili 2370 1991 Georgia

Average rating: 2592