The Reykjavik Open will continue to be played at the popular Harpa music and conference center in 2023. The dates are set, and the tournament will be played from the 29th of March until the 4th of April.
We will play 9 rounds in 7 days! This format was used last year as well.
The last Reykjavik Open in 2022 featured 245 players from 39 countries and the field included 22 grandmasters, 7 of which had an ELO-rating of 2600 or higher.
Many world-class players have taken part in the Reykjavik Open in recent years, including Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Anish Giri, Baadur Jobava, Richard Rapport, Pavel Eljanov, Wesley So, Alexei Shirov, the Indian prodigies Nihal Sarin and Praggananandhaa who was the winner of last year’s event and Constantin Lupulescu winner of 2019 edition, and the current world no. 4 Alireza Firouzja who ended in 2nd place!
The total prize fund in the 2023 edition will be €16.000, including many special prizes for various age and rating categories, in addition to the traditional top women’s prize.
The Reykjavik Open has in recent years always been voted one of the best open tournaments in the world by ACP.
The schedule can be found here.
New Sponsorship!
The Reykjavik Open is proud to announce a sponsorship by Chessable starting this year. Additionally to the prize fund mentioned above, there will be several prizes provided by Chessable, and winners of rating categories and top prizes for women can start looking forward to improving their chess even further with top-quality Chessable courses!
Spring Tournament
The new early April schedule is aimed at giving the players an even better chance of enjoying Iceland, with warmer temperatures when the island bursts into spring colors, allowing our guests to soak up the bright spring light and hopefully have that bit of extra energy to spend on the 64 squares.
Much more than a chess tournament
As in earlier years, several chess-themed events will take place at the same time as the tournament, including the now famous Reykjavík Open Chess Pub Quiz and the Golden Circle sightseeing tour that includes stops at Geysir and Bobby Fischer’s final resting place in the southern part of Iceland. Iceland is one of the most attractive places in the world to visit and play in chess tournaments. The full 2023 side-event calendar will also include a blitz Tournament, and possible some further special events.
Reykjavik Open 2023
Though it is still more than 5 months until the tournament we already have 58 players on the list of players with 12 titled players already signed up. We expect a very good turnout this time around and hopefully, the record will be broken over 300 players is the dream!
Join the legends and be part of chess history
Through its history, the Reykjavik Open has featured many of the strongest chess players in the world at the time. These include the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen as well the challenger for the title Fabiano Caruana, the 8th world champion Mikhail Tal, who won the first tournament in 1964 with a record 12½ points out of 13, as well as the 7th world champion Vasili Smyslov. It has also featured the strongest women in the world, including, Judit Polgar and world champions Hou Yifan and Nona Gaprindashvili, as well as challengers for the world title like Victor Korchnoi, David Bronstein, Nigel Short, and Jan Timman.
In recent years, the tournament has featured world class players – in addition to those mentioned earlier – like Ding Liren, Alexander Grischuk, Alexei Shirov, Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Wesley So, while earlier editions featured legends like Friðrik Ólafsson, Anthony Miles, Bent Larsen, Lev Polugaevsky, Mark Taimanov, and Samuel Reshevsky.
As in previous years, the goal of organizers to is invite many of the youngest and most promising chess players in the world, as well as the strong women players.
Why not join? You can register!
Reykjavik Open – SO much more than just a chess tournament!