The 74th Tata Steel Chess Tournament takes place Saturday 14th January - Sunday 29th January 2012. Magnus Carlsen is the top seed ahead of Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin and Veselin Topalov. 

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament has three main tournaments. They are played according to the 'round robin' system, whereby each competitor plays in turn against every other during the tournament. All three Grandmaster groups have 14 players. All rounds begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round on January 29th, which begins at 12.00 hours. There are rest days: on January 18th, 23rd, and 26th. The time control is: 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move.