Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands): In a first such incident in Chess, the opening round of the Tata Steel Masters tournament here was postponed for a few hours after the entrance of the venue was blocked by huge chunks of coal left there by environmental activists.
The organizing committee took note of the situation immediately and decided to postpone the first round for at least a few hours. The situation was controlled only after the organisers were able to ensure safety of the participants which ran into huge numbers.
The Tata Steel Masters, which got its new name in 2011, was earlier called the Corus tournament named after the steel company based in this coastal town near Amsterdam.
It was a shocking revelation for most of the players registered for the event. The tournament has not only two elite events but also has many side events wherein hundreds of players from across the globe join in to be a part of this great chess festival that has been celebrated 88 times since 1938 when it first started.
The organisers confirmed that the day will not be lost and they were swift in removing the coal garbage.
World champion D Gukesh will have his task cut out when he sits behind the black pieces against recently crowned world cup winner Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan.
Tha Tata Steel Masters will have 14 players vying to find a place in the future history books of chess. Arjun Erigaisi is the top seed of the event as the top three ranked players in the world -- Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana -- are not participating this year.
While the non-participation of Carlsen was expected, Caruana and Nakamura possibly declined in view of the Candidates’ tournament that starts in March.
With a busy schedule in the entire 2025, the world’s top players have had their hands full and this was an expected outcome.
(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and auto-generated from an agency feed.)
