The Reykjavik Open now has a new #1 seed for the 2016 edition. The very aggressive, inventive and exciting Hungarian Richard Rapport (2715) will be playing.
GM Richard Rapport
The female part of the player pool also gets a sizeable boost as his Serbian WGM girlfriend, Jovana Vojinovic (2352) will also be playing.
WGM Vojinovic
They both won an invitation to the tournament with a fantastic performance at the recent European Team Championship in Reykjavik. Amusingly they both had the best performance on board 2, Vojinovic with a fantastic 2576 rating performance in the woman section while Rapport had a massive 2828 rating performance in the open section. Looks like the fresh air should suit them quite well!
This is their second appearance at the Open as well having previously played in 2014.
Despite having been around for a while it’s easy to forget that Rapport will not celebrate his 20th birthday until after the Reykjavik Open. He was a young prodigy and started to make noise at an early age: 2010 Chessbase article
Here is a sample of Rapport’s play.
One comical:
A beautiful finish vs Gajewski:
And finally an impressive win vs Gelfand and true to style with the unusual opening choice! At the 2014 Reykjavik Open, Rapport had black against local IM Kjartansson in a game which went 1.Nf3 e6 2.g3 g5!??!? 3.d4 g4.
