KOLKATA: India's top two women players will be seen in action as Tata Steel Chess India returns to the city for the fourth time from November 29 to December 4.
The inaugural women's edition of the tournament has a strong field of 11 players including India No. 1 Koneru Humpy (Elo 2574) and No. 2 Harika Dronavalli (Elo 2507) along with the famous Muzychuk sisters – Anna and Mariya from Ukraine. Both the sisters were part of the gold-medal winning Ukrainian team at the Chess Olympiad earlier this year. Humpy will get a chance to exert revenge on Anna after she crashed out of the 2022-23 Women's Candidates meet by losing to the Ukrainian No. 2 player in the quarterfinal tie-breaks.
Apart from the sisters, the field also includes Anna Ushenina of Ukraine, Poland's Oliwia Kiolbasa and Nana Dzadnidze of Georgia as overseas players. Top Indian talents like team Chess Olympiad bronze medal winners R Vaishali and Bhakti Kulkarni along with gold winning team member in online Olympiad 2020 Vantika Agarwal and bronze medal winner at the Chess Olympiad 2021 Savitha Shri complete the line-up.
In the open section, all eyes will be on youngsters D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin, the rising stars of world chess. The tournament will see the return of Wesley So (USA), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) and Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran) while former world rapid champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan will make his maiden appearance.
While Vidit Gujarathi will lead the Indian challenge, former national champion SP Sethuraman will play the meet for the first time.
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand will be present as the ambassador of the tournament which will be played in rapid and blitz formats with the former being scheduled over the first three days and the latter in the last two days.
For the first time, the prize fund for both the men's and women's categories will be equal.
