It’s safe to say that people are looking forward to the 2014 Reykjavik Open which will open its 50 year anniversary edition tomorrow!
The playing hall getting ready
Today the organisers and some volunteers were busy setting up the tournament hall in the lovely playing hall of the Harpa playing venue.
Players were showing up and this year we have players from well over 40 countries participating. A lot of them arrived and registered today but some will arrive tomorrow.
The president of the Icelandic Chess Federation, Gunnar Björnsson registering people for the tournament
50 Year annisversary player card
This year we are celebrating 5o years of Reykjavik Open. This you can see on the player card info which is placed next to each player where he sits. This is the card for GM Robin Van Kampen from the Netherlands.
Commentary room being set up
The crew from Chess.com has also showed up and had to use today to setup of the commentary room where a live show will be broadcast every day and several camers were being set up on the top boards. Peter Doggers and Lennart Ootes seem to know what they are doing!
Some strong GM’s and some pretty girls participating in the soon to be world famous Hand/Brain game!
Finally today there was an opening party at the official bar of the tournament, the Sky and Lounge Bar which is situated on the 8th floor of the Arnarhvoll hotel were many of the chessplayers are staying. A good number of players showed up, socialized and got to know each other and the organisers. Our attention was especially drawn to one Juan from Brazil who is travelling abroad for the first time in his life and of course he chose the Reykjavik Open and Iceland as his destination! Juan met with the Portugese speaking GM Luis Galego, played some blitz with the locals and made a very good impression with the Icelanders. Chess is so much more than a game….it’s a means of connecting people all across the world!
See you tomorrow and please, we want to follow your experience of the Reykjavik Open, so whatever you do on social media, use the hashtag: #reychess
