The Reykjavik Open 2026 started yesterday when the first round got under way. The president of the Icelandic Chess Federation addressed the guests and Alexandra Briem from Reykjavik City opened the tournament officially by making the first move for the number one seed, Amin Tabatabaei. Reykjavik city has sponsored the Reykjavik Open since it’s inaugural edition in 1964!
Alexandra Briem makes the ceremonial first move
Most of the top seeds managed to get through the round with a win but as always there were exception. 7th seed Elham Amar failed to win with the white pieces against 2136-rated German Adrian Kamp. Also conceding draws were GM’s Alisher Suleymanov who tested local IM Askell Karason for 103 moves before accepting the inevitable as well as Nico Chasin and Vuppala Prraneeth. We had to go all the way down to table 75 before we find an upset where the lower seed manage to beat the higher seed. Canadian Briang Jiang managed to defeat IM Laura Unuk.
Ivanchuk has been in good form this year
Ivanchuk likes to play the Reykjavik Open, he opened his 3rd Reykjavik Open in a row, the only 2600+ to do so! He opened his campaign with a win against a Chinese WIM.
The Reykjavik Open continues on Thursday with one of the two double-round days when rounds 2 and 3 will be played, despite some windy weather!
Impressions from the first round:
View this post on Instagram
Games can be watched from these links:
Streamers:
- Hannah Sayce
- Tamara Kadovic
- Matthew Perchard (channel of Lularobs)
- Simon Williams (tbd)
- Keti Tsatsalashvili (tbd)
Reykjavik Open Social Media:
- Instagram Icelandic Chess Federation
- TikTok Icelandic Federation
- Twitter/X Reykjavik Open
- Facebook page
Annað:
