After a very brief and informal opening party on Monday evening, things got serious yesterday as the 30th edition of the Reykjavik Open got underway at the magnificent Harpa concert hall. This year’s edition is a very special one, as it is held in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the legendary Icelandic grandmaster and former FIDE President, Fridrik Olafsson. His contribution to chess has been so immense that he was awarded honorary citizenship of the City of Reykjavik, an honour bestowed only 5 times before.
As such, it doesn’t come as a surprise that for the first time in many years, the reigning FIDE President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, visited Reykjavik Open, as he was present for the opening ceremony and opened the tournament by executing the first move on board 1. Also present was the President of the ECU, Zurab Azmaiparashvili, as well as a representative of this year’s main sponsor, GAMMA.
For this very special edition, the tournament once again broke numerous records and mainly that of participants’ number, as this year a total of 274 players from 37 countries made their way to Reykjavik. Out of those 274 players, a staggering 94 are titled players, with 35 GMs and 30 IMs leading the field. Top seed this year is Shakhriyar Mamedyarov from Azerbaijan, the current Number 13 in the world. He is closely followed by the Czech grandmaster David Navara, who like many other players came here directly from the European Championship, which concluded in Jerusalem only on Sunday and where he had an amazing result, winning the silver medal.
As is usual for tournaments where the Swiss pairing system is used, the first round pairings saw gaps of up to 600-points in rating between players facing each other. However, four valiant players managed to hold a draw against their much higher rated opponents:
Benet Morant Damia |
2044 |
0 |
½ – ½ |
0 |
GM | Hammer Jon Ludvig |
2651 |
| Jonsson Olafur Gisli |
1899 |
0 |
½ – ½ |
0 |
IM | Hamitevici Vladimir |
2450 |
| Sibiya Ruddy T |
1784 |
0 |
½ – ½ |
0 |
IM | Vuilleumier Alexandre |
2349 |
| De Winter Eric |
1776 |
0 |
½ – ½ |
0 |
IM | Cummings David H. |
2345 |
The biggest surprise amongst those is surely the draw by Jon Ludvig Hammer, who at 2651 is the 6th seed in the tournament and who also happens to be one of Magnus Carlsen’s seconds.
Eric De Winter is an old friend of Fridrik Olafsson who came all the way from the Netherlands to present Fridrik with a special gift and to participate in the tournament. During his speech at the opening ceremony, Eric joked that he was still struggling to tell the difference between a knight and a bishop, but surely that wasn’t entirely true as he held IM David Cummings from Canada for a draw.
Today sees the tournament’s only double round, with games starting at 10am and 5pm GMT. You can see the live games here http://www.reykjavikopen.com/round-2-2/ and live commentary here http://www.chess.com/tv !
You can also find all the pictures from the tournament on the official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ReykjavikOpenChess/photos_stream?tab=photos_albums
Fiona Steil-Antoni
