Chess players socializing in hand&brain

One of the fun things about chess tournaments is of course socializing, meeting old friends and gaining new ones. One way to do that is to have a friendly chess game, perhaps over 1-2 beers or a glass of white wine. One fun way to play is teams, and one fun variant of that is…

Video clip: Anish Giri

Anish Giri and Alexander Ipatov played each other in round 5 of the Reykjavik Open. Before the game, instead of preparing for the game both of them joined the Golden Circle tour, between 08:30 in the morning and 15:30 in the afternoon. At the board, Giri won convincingly, finishing with an hour extra on the…

A bit too creative

It’s a widely known phrase that “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” is the definition of insanity. Well…I don’t know if the player with black in this game is insane but he certainly tried to be creative and not do the same thing over and over!! Thank you for…

What to do when computer breaks down?

Ivan Sokolov has the answer. Ivan has been having some bad luck lately in life and chess. He suffered a setback early in the tournament and now his computer has broken down because of this crap they call Windows 8!! So what can you do with no preparation vs a solid WGM? White: Lenka Ptacnikova…

Harpa

by Ian Rogers Around a decade ago the Reykjavik Open moved to the impressive Reykjavik Town Hall, with views of icy waters shared by large numbers of ducks and swans. In those days Iceland was the rich uncle of Europe and the fine  playing conditions for the biennial Open were not surprising. Returning many years…