thumb|right|upright=1.5|Playing hall of the 80th Tata Steel Tournament, 2018|alt=A very large crowd sitting around many tables, playing chess in a large hall
The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is an annual chess tournament held in January in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. with the tournament changing to its current name in 2011. It has also been referred to as "Wijk aan Zee" since the venue change from the town of Beverwijk to the town of Wijk aan Zee in 1968. Despite the name changes, the series is numbered sequentially from its Hoogovens beginnings; for example, the 2025 event was referred to as the 87th Tata Steel Chess Tournament.
Top grandmasters compete in the tournament, but regular club players are welcome to play in the lower groups. The Masters group pits fourteen of the world's best players against each other in a round-robin tournament, and has sometimes been described as the "Wimbledon of Chess". Since 1938, there has been a long list of very strong winners; of the fifteen undisputed World Chess Champions since the first tournament in 1938, only five – Alexander Alekhine, Vasily Smyslov, Bobby Fischer, Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju – have not won it. In 2001, nine of the top ten players in the world participated.
Tournament history
Hoogovens Beverwijk
The early tournaments were very small, starting with groups of four in 1938, and entry restricted to Dutch players. The first four tournaments continued this way, until 1942, when it was expanded to six players, and in 1943 to eight players. No tournament was held in 1945 due to World War II. The first international tournament was held in 1946, with the field expanded to ten, and invitations to Alberic O'Kelly de Galway (Belgium) and Gösta Stoltz (Sweden) along with a Dutch contingent of eight.