The World Champions live up to their reputations in Wijk aan Zee
: Created:25 Jan 2015 , byWorld Champion Magnus Carlsen was placed first in the annual Tata Steel tournament and Women's World Champion Hou Yifan lived up to her grading with a very respectable performance against the men.
Carlsen was very impressive mid tournament with a series of victories but at twenty four years of age he finds that even younger guys are hot on his heels. Maxime Vachier Lagrave, Anish Giri, Wesley So and Ding Liren finished only half a point behind Carlsen.
Levon Aronian was the major casualty in this event and Fabiano Caruana, a wunderkind in 2014 was only just above half-way. Following the games on the Susan Polgar site I was surprised at the number of times Caruana left himself short of time.
The evergreen Vasily Ivanchuk led the event early on but faded a little but his sixth place was a major achievement and he seems to have put the habit of time trouble evident at last year's candidates tournament behind him.
Hou Yifan was eleventh out of fourteen. She has established a clear gap in grading between herself and her female rivals and in this tournament she added to her armoury with the white pieces by sometimes not starting with 1.e4. Vishy Anand took the same route in the new millennium and was for seven years world champion.