Yesterday, the Reykjavik Open 2026 festivities got under way with the annual Harpa Blitz tournament. Like last year, the tournament was held the day before the start of the main tournament. Before the blitz the opening party was held and everybody was in good spirits and the 153 player blitz tournament started shortly after 19:00. The schedule held pretty nicely with about 20 minutes per round.
At the end of the day number one seed and local GM Vignir Vatnar Stefansson was the winner with 9.5 points out of 11. Vignir recovered from a third round loss against tough Kazak WGM Xenia Balabayeva to win 7 games in a row. In the last round Vignir settled on a draw from a promising position as he held the direct encounter tiebreak against Levon Livaic who also had a strong tournament.
The top finishers are below:
Further results on chess-results
