Reykjavik Open 2014 – Dates

The 2014 edition of the Reykjavik Open will take place March 4th-March 12th. Once again the tournament will be held in the beautiful Harpa concert hall by the Reykjavik harbour. The 2014 Reykjavik Open will celebrate a 50 year anniversary of the tournament. The organisers will do their best to make this 50 year anniversary…

Tournament of the Year 2012

ACP, the association of chess professionals is now conducting members vote for tournaments of the year for 2012. The Reykjavik Open is one of the candidates for “Best Open Tournament” and we of course encourage you to give us your vote if you played in 2012 and like it. The voting is open to members…

Alexander Ipatov happy with his 2nd visit

World Junior Champion Alexander Ipatov has written an article about his Reykjavik Open 2013. He also played in 2012 so he can make some comparisons. He was very happy with his time here and praises the organisation and gives credit to some of the people working really hard on the tournament, ICF President Gunnar Bjornsson…

Eljanov and others on Eljanov vs So

When Pavel Eljanov and Wesley So became joint winners of the Reykjavik Open (with Amin Baseem later joining them) five minutes or so into the last round they were immediately given a hard time about their quick draw on board one. For instance in the above picture we see the response of Silvio Danailov. Later…

Players perspective!

It’s always nice to read what players are thinking about so it’s a pleasure to point you to these two excellent articles on the experience of two different but closely related players. First we offer Gawain Jones’s article. Gawain has now played the Reykjavik Open three times and two seasons in the Icelandic league so…

Lisa Orlova interviews IM Gretarsson

Lisa Orlova was one of many competitors in they 2013 Reykjavik Open. She has a chess channel on YouTube and did some interviews while she was in Reykjavik. Here is her interview with local IM Hjörvar Steinn Grétarsson who missed a chance at a GM norm in the last round.

Prize winners of the N1 Reykjavik Open 2013

Yesterday we had the closing ceremony of the N1 Reykjavik Open. Óttarr Proppé of the city council welcomed guests to the ceremony and said the city was delighted with the tournament proceedings. Agreeing with him was minister of Education and Culture, Katrín Jakobsdóttir who gave away the prizes along with the members of the Icelandic…

Baseem joins the leaders

With some games still to be finished the final result of the tournament is clear. Pavel Eljanov and Wesley so finish on top with 8 points after their mutual draw but Amin Baseem managed to catch up with his last round victory. Therefore we have the 3 winners from 3 continents. Eljanov has the best…

A quick draw secures joint winners

Wesley So didn’t feel like rocking the boat with the black pieces versus the super solid Pavel Eljanov and offered a quick draw. Eljanov accepted and all this transpired while some players hadn’t even begun their play, yet alone arrived at the board (Gawain Jones on the top boards among those) This secures them both…