The Argentine chess player Faustino Orojust 11 years old, will face his first great challenge of 2025: he will compete from this Saturday until February 2 in the group Challengers del Torneo Tata Steela traditional event of this discipline that takes place in the city of Neighborhood By the Seain the Netherlands.
In this contest group 14 players intervenewho face everyone against everyone. Gold, who is the 13th seed, aspires to get there the first of the three Grandmaster rules that are necessary to obtain that degree. To do this, he will have to score 7.5 points in the 13 wheels against rivals much more experienced than him.
The Argentine prodigy, who In June 2024 he became the youngest International Master in the history of chesshas an Elo of 2433 points and is ranked 1245th in the world ranking. Among his opponents are nine Grandmasters: the Czech Thai van Nguyen (he has 2673 Elo), the German Frederik Svane (2668), the Uzbek Nodirbek Yakubboev (2668), the Turkish Ediz Gurel (2624), the Azerbaijani Aydin Sukeymanli (2623 ), the Dutch Erwin L’Ami (2617) and Benjamin Bok (2593), the Kazakh Kazybek Nogerbek (2527) and the Indian Vaishali Rameshbabu (2476).
Four other competitors who hold the title of International Master, as well as Gold, will also participate in this category: the Indian Divya Deshmukh (2490 Elo), the Dutch Arthur Pijper (2469), the Chinese Lu Miaoyi (2441) and the Romanian Irina Bulmaga (2386).
The Tata Steel Tournament also includes a Masters group, in which 14 players also participate, including five of the top 10 in the world ranking. The first seed is the American Fabiano Caruana, who already won this competition in 2020. There will also be a competition for amateurs, in which almost 400 players will participate.
This prestigious tournament began to be played in 1938. It was initially held in the city of Beverwijk and was intended for Dutch competitors only. In the first editions four players participated and in 1943 that number was increased to eight. In 1946 the first foreigners joined: the Belgian Alberic O’Kelly from Galway and the Swede Gösta Stoltz.
The competition gained prestige, continued to increase its number of participants and added a women’s competition and a Masters Reserves tournament, whose winner was invited the following year to play the higher event. In 1968 it moved its headquarters to Wijk Aan Zee. Its name changed several times, depending on the main sponsors. Since 2007 it has been called Tata Steel, which is the name of the Indian steel mill that took over the organization.
Last month, Faustino Oro won the Olimpia de Plata in chess. Photo: Leonardo Zavattaro / CPD.Almost all the great stars of this discipline (except the American Bobby Fischer) have participated at least once in this tournament. The top winner is the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, who won eight times. He is followed by the Indian Viswanathan Anand (five), the Dutch Max Euwe (four) and the Soviet Garry Kasparov (three).
Several Argentines competed in this contest, among them Miguel Najdorf, Miguel Quinteros and Jorge Szmetan. The last to do so was Fernando Peralta, in 2013. Faustino Oro will now join them.