The Tata Steel Chess India 2024 was held between November 13 and 17 at the Dhono Dhanyo Auditorium in Kolkata, India. It witnessed some intense action, led by a spirited performance from home hope GM Arjun Erigaisi, who gave GM Magnus Carlsen a huge scare before succumbing in their penultimate round match and handing the World No 1 a hard-fought double.
This Chess competition was held in both the Blitz and Rapid formats and included some of the world's best players, with Carlsen clinching both crowns. On the women's side, GM Aleksandra Goryachkina won the Women's Rapid segment, while GM Kateryna Lagno claimed the Women's Blitz trophy, both doing so with a round to spare.
The entire Tata Steel Chess India 2024 series carried a prize fund of $83,000, with the two Blitz winners taking home $7,500 and the two Rapid champions pocketing $10,000. The wins here, combining $17,500, also marked Magnus Carlsen's ninth and tenth tournament victories in 2024, underlining his stature as one of Chess' all-timers.
What made these victories sweeter was the level of play the Norwegian had to contend with, including almost losing to Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the last round of the Rapid segment before settling for a draw to keep his unbeaten run intact. However, the Blitz games were a lot tighter, with Carlsen even confessing that the final round was a "really, really nervy day."
Eventually, he was able to haul back the lead he gave up to Erigaisi with three rounds to go after going on a five-game drawing streak. This included beating the Indian in the penultimate round to ensure he would go home as the double Tata Steel Chess India 2024 champion and putting the icing on the cake by signing off with a win over GM Vidit Gujrathi.
Ahead of his crucial game against Erigaisi, Carlsen explained on the live broadcast:
"Yesterday was kind of a difficult day for me. I couldn’t sleep the last night and I was playing off adrenaline yesterday really, and I think today I was well-rested, but my nervous system was still not quite where it should be, so it was a really, really nervy day."
Indian fans attending the event were also in for a surprise as former world champion Viswanathan Anand was in the house to hand over the winner's trophy to Carlsen. He also expressed his excitement on the upcoming about the upcoming FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 match in Singapore between Ding Liren and D Gukesh.
The 54-year-old was quoted as saying:
"It has a lot of very interesting plots to it. It is the first all-Asian title match in the history of the World Championship. I believe that a rivalry between India and China will be fascinating to watch."
All this helped the Tata Steel Chess India 2024 register 21K Peak Viewers, 11.1K Average Viewers, and 234.6K Hours Watched over an airtime of around 21 hours. Official broadcasts, especially on YouTube, continued to bring in a massive chunk of the audience, with Hindi broadcasts emerging as the second most popular after English.
This viewership peak came during Round 17 of the contest when Carlsen confirmed his tournament win with a victory over Erigaisi. Despite the latter playing with White and looking solid in the early part of the game, he began to make mistakes, and his legendary opponent wasted no time pouncing to win it all.
Interestingly, Carlsen will also be heading to Singapore for a Freestyle Chess Match against GM Fabiano Caruana. He also revealed that some tourism is on the cards after that as he doesn't get to do so often when on tours He would also watch the World Chess Championship match, which will run from November 25 and December 13 at the Resorts World Sentosa.
