We are one day away from the 2015 Reykjavik Open!
The 3oth edition of the tournament will take place between March 10th and 18th. This years tournament is to honor the recent 80th birthday of local chess hero and Iceland’s first Grandmaster, Fridrik Olafsson.
It looks like we will break another record this year as we have 280 registered players (255 last year). The players come from 38 countries this year.
The field is headlined by the strong Azeri Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who is currently #13 in the world and two-time European Champion with his home country of Azerbaijan. Former winner of the Open Pavel Eljanov from Ukraine is back for more and frequent guest and Czech #1 David Navara are also notable names.
Here to compete are also some chess lessons and here we have to mention the name of Artur Jussupow who was world #3 when the two K’s were battling it out at the top of the chess summit (ehemm Kaspaorv and Karpov if you were wondering!!). Jussopow is one of the most renowned trainers in the world these days and he has already honored the local players with excellent lectures over the weekend.
The field is very diverse as always with young and old players going head to head. As always we are very happy to have strong female players competing and we welcome back tournament regular Tania Sachdev from Indian and we are also looking forward to seeing Zhou Qiyu from Canada, current World Champion under-14.
We are also very happy to welcome guest to the tournament who will not be playing. FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov will attend the opening ceremony as weill Zurab Azmaiparashvili, president of the European Chess Union.
Last but certainly not least the World Champion himself will visit the tournament between 13th and 16th of March. Yes, Magnús Carlsen is coming!
For those already in Reykjavik we welcome you to the opening party @17:00 which will be hedl at Sky Lounge Bar which is on the 8th floor of Hotel Arnarhvoll which is on the corner right across from Harpan and with a magnificent view!
For those not here yet, we hope you have a safe trip! We are expecting a lot of snow and wind the next few days so make sure to pack your bags properly!!
The main sponsor of the tournament is GAMMA.
