Today a new sponsorship contract was signed with the investment firm GAMMA which will be the main sponsor of the Reykjavik Open for the next four years. The signature on the contract was very fittingly done on the national chess day in Iceland and of course it’s no coincidence that today is also the 80th…
The dates are set for the 2015 Reykjavik Open, mark March 10th-18th on your calendar! The venue is the same as the last few years, the Harpan Conference Hall. The 2015 tournament falls on the same year as the 80th birthday of arguably the most legendary chessplayer in Icelandic Chess history, GM Fridrik Olafsson. The…
The special events have become more and more important with each year as we keep trying to improve the Reykjavik Open and the overall experience for our guests. The Golden Circle has been a mainstay now for many years and this year we had several events that we have had before like the blitz tournament,…
The Chinese Grandmaster Li Chao (2700) was the sole winner of the N1 Reykjavik Open which finished yesterday in Harpa Music&Conference hall. Li Chao finishd with 8,5 points over 10 rounds of play. Helgi Ólafsson (2546) was the leading Icelandic player in joint 2nd-5th with 8 points and joined by Robin Van Kampen, Eric Hansen and…
Li Chao takes it all here in Reykjavik with a very impressive score of 8.5/10. Congratulations!! Behind him 4 players are tied for 2nd place with 8/10: Robin van Kampen, Eric Hansen, Eduardas Rozentalis and Helgi Olafsson. The closing ceremony will start in half an hour at the Rekjavik city hall!
At the start of today’s round 9 I predicted a lot of decisive on the top boards, but what happened exceeded even my expectations… There was not a single draw on the first 9 boards!! On board 1 Li Chao lined up a 3rd consecutive win, this time against Richard Rapport. This game was a…
Round 8 was an especially exciting day yesterday at Harpa as the tournament saw the visit of the great Garry Kasparov. Before the round there was a book signing session and the number of people who queued up for this was simply incredible! Kasparov also held a short speech before the start of the round…
On the day Bobby Fischer would have celebrated his 71st birthday, Garry Kasparov paid a visit to his grave in Selfoss, Iceland. It was a historic moment for chess: arguably the two greatest players of the game never met, and so they were never as close to each other. Chess.com was there to witness the…
Round 7 was another very interesting affair yesterday, as all 3 top boards were decisive. On board 1 Bassem Amin scored another very convincing win against Erwin l’Ami, taking his total to an impressive 6.5/7! On board 2 Robin van Kampen avoided early simplifications, but was later outplayed by Arkadij Naiditsch. On board 3 finally…
We saw another round of extremely interesting and fighting chess at Harpa yesterday as all of the top 5 boards were decisive. On board 1 Robin van Kampen beat Richard Rapport in what was probably one of the most exciting games of the day. In yet another Pirc (the amounts of Pircs we have seen…
