The first round of the Reykjavik Open / European Individual produced a very limited amount of upsets. But upsets it did produce!
The tournament was opened by the Prime Minister of Iceland, Katrin Jakobsdottir and she was assisted by chair of the city council, Alexandra Briem, and Deputy President of ECU Gunnar Bjornsson.
And we're off! 1.e4 for Gawain Jones, "best by test" and the European Championship has started @ECUonline #chess #reykjavikopen #EICC pic.twitter.com/me38nGKSdO
— ReykjavikOpenChess (@ReykjavikOpen) August 26, 2021
Most of the round ended with the expected result as the rating gap was quite big in most matches. Lets check out some of the upsets…
Despite his best effort with the black pieces, Gabriel Sargissian (2682( was unable to overcome Alexandra Maltevskaya(2409). After a quiet opening, Sargissian probably got a slight slight edge in the endgame but Maltevskaya defended by giving up a piece and liquidating all the pawns.
Lupulescu (2659) and Saric (2653) both failed to find a squeeze vs their opponents and had to settle for a draw. The first real upset came on board 15 where 2309 rated Hilmir Freyr Heimisson played one of his best game ever against Tamas Banusz (2631). Black’s attack just crashed through!
Martin Wecker from Germany rated a modest 2195 managed another upset against Marin Bosiocic (2610), and totally redeemed himself. The thing is, in 2017, Martin lost in only 11 moves against a 1200 rated player at the Reykjavik Open, causing quite the commotion. This time around, he reversed his first round disaster!
Nicolas Kueng (2005) from Switzerland round off the big upsets when he defeated the veteran Tiger Hillarp Persson (2543).
The 2nd round has a lot of interesting GM matchups already and things will get interesting right from the start!
The first round broadcasts can be replayed here:
Ivan Sokolov is the main commentator and will have various Icelandic guest commentators. Today GM’s Hlegi Olafsson and Throstur Thorhallsson helped him out.
Further photos from the 1st round
