The 79th Tata Steel Chess Tournament is underway in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. This year’s masters group offers a particularly interesting lineup, with world champion Magnus Carlsen making his 10th visit to the Dutch seashore. Also in the field is Carlsen’s nemesis, Sergey Karjakin of Russia. The only American in the field is the newest member of the “2800 Club,’’ Wesley So, whose rating after a great year is now 2808. Other players of note in the 14-player field are Levon Aronian, Pentala Sasikiran, Anish Giri, and the timeless veteran Loek van Wely. And please let’s not forget the always-interesting Richard Rapport and Wei Yi, the world’s two best junior players. It’s a strange field in that Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Kramnik, and Viswanathan Anand are not playing; perhaps they prefer the warm weather in Gibraltar rather than the wintry Holland? There will be live commentary on TataSteelChess.com .

The Tata Challenger section has some very interesting players in its 14-player field. Current American junior champion Texan Jeffrey Xiong will make his first major tournament appearance. Along with Xiong will be the very determined Canadian Eric Hansen. The two young Dutch hopes, Jorden van Forrest and Benjamin Bok, will be there along with two women invitees, Chinese world grand master Lei Tingjie and Georgian/Dutch international master Sopiko Guramishvili, who is married to Anish Giri. Besides winning some money, (roughly $2,100) the winner also earns an invitation to next year’s Master’s group.

The always-popular Gibraltar Tradewise Chess Festival starts at the end of January and runs for nine rounds to Feb. 1. This year’s event boasts a very strong and interesting field, including Caruana and Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, Russian Peter Svidler, current world rapid’s champion Vassily Ivanchuk, and Brandeis graduate Sam Shankland. There will live commentary on www.GibraltarChessCongress.com for each round.

Winners: Boston Chess Congress, Premier: 1st: A. Ivanov, 4.5-5, U2100: 1st-3rd: Harold Scott, Kevin Zhong, Alan Sikarov, 4-1, U1900, 1st: Paul Arond, 5-0

Coming events: Jan. 21, MACA’s Winter Team Challenge (Scholastic), Boxboro Regency, 242 Adams Place, Boxborough, www.MassChess.org; Jan. 22, Boylston January Senior Sunday, 40 Norris St., Cambridge, www.BoylstonChess.org

Answer to today’s problem: 1.Qxg6! hxg6 2.Rh3 and there is no stopping Rh8 mate

Chris Chase can be reached at BostonGlobeChessNotes@gmail.com.