Things are underway here at the Reykjavik Open. As always with a close to a 300 player open there will be some no shows. Most of them got filtered out but Gata Kamsky was a recipent of a no-show from Nigeria who had already payed the entry fee so naturally he was paired up in the 1st round!
On the top boards, Anish Giri was the first one to get on the board. His opponent perhaps intimidated by the #1 seed made an early mistake allowing …b4 after avoiding a3. White is in trouble and lost a piece because of the option of …Bb5 in most lines though he could have made the deficit only a pawn.
An early upset also appeared with a local player sitting on 1227 elo managed to beat a German player with 2134 elo with the black pieces! 10.Nf4?? was a horrible blunder, allowing the simple 10…Bb4+ when nothing can be done!
Last years winner, Abhijeet Gupta starts as the #13 seed this year but he seems fresh in his tactics.
He punished black’s last move 22…Nd3?? quite nicely. Gupta played 23.Nxf7! Rxf7 24.Qxf7+! ….if black takes, fxe5+ follows with a winning position.
