Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian will play against Sergei Karjakin of Russia in round 1 of the 74th Tata Steel Chess Tournament held January 13–29, 2012 in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.
The other pairings are: David Navara (Czech Republic) – Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Boris Gelfand (Israel) – Anish Giri (Netherlands), Timour Radjabov (Azerbaijan) – Fabiano Caruana (Italy), Hikaru Nakamura (U.S.) – Vassily Ivanchik (Ukraine), Magnus Carlsen (Norway) – Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan), Gata Kamsky (U.S.) – Loek Van Wely.
