Although the weather improved on Sunday, storm clouds hung over the top board at the Reykjavik Open. The whirlwind Amin Tabatabaei made it rain problems on the position of the Frenchman Marc’Andria Maurizzi and picked up his seventh win in seven games—almost unheard-of dominance at the Reykjavik Open! Guðmundur Kjartansson has taken the lead among the Icelanders after winning the all-Icelandic clash against Vignir Vatnar Stefánsson.
Tabatabaei had White against the Frenchman on board one. The Iranian had no interest in anything half-hearted and launched a hard attack early in the game. Tabatabaei let the Polish Kuba, a boy who is here through Polish “Make a Wish” organisations, play the opening move by pushing the king pawn two squares. Players are by no means obliged to play the move made for them by honorary guests, but interestingly Amin did not let Kuba choose; instead, he told him to play 1.e4. Then 1.d4 appeared as White’s first move when the game actually started, a bit of psychological guerrilla warfare by the tournament’s top seed!
Despite the aggressive intentions, Maurizzi withstood the attack (he actually missed a small chance of his own a little earlier), and for a long time the game was balanced: White with an extra pawn, but Black with the bishop pair, which often cancels out. Just after Maurizzi reached the time control, he made a mistake.
41…g2?? was a blunder. Here it was necessary to play 41…Kc8 in order not to lose a tempo to the check along the a-file. 42.a6+! and suddenly it is hard to find a good square for the king. 42…Kc8 was best, but 42…Ka8 43.b6! g1=Q 43.b7+ Ka7 44.b8=Q Ka6 45.Be3! is a fun line!
White was winning here, but then threw it away again for a few moves—only for the Frenchman to hand the game back once more. Finders keepers, if no one is found the owner keeps it! Tabatabaei then finished the queen endgame with good technique after that.
View this post on Instagram
Vignir’s game against Guðmundur was essentially a deciding game for which Icelander could stake a claim to one of the prize places in the tournament, although Guðmundur’s tiebreaks were considerably worse. It seemed that the opening went slightly off track for Vignir, and he had to settle for a somewhat worse middlegame, where Guðmundur was in a position to keep pressing for a long time—something that suits Guðmundur well.
Vignir appeared to weather the worst of it, and it looked as if he might hold an endgame a pawn down with bishop versus knight. However, small mistakes accumulated, and in the end Guðmundur managed to build momentum with his d-pawn and secured the win after 98 moves! It is far from the first time that Guðmundur has played one of the longest games of the round at the Reykjavik Open!
On the top boards, Matthew Wadsworth reminded everyone of his strength with a fine win against a French IM. Matthew is now alone in second place and, in reality, the only player standing between Tabatabaei and victory at the Reykjavik Open.
Many have staked a claim for the “swindle” prize in this tournament. Eric De Winter produced a memorable combination against Tamara Kadovic, and Zain Patel had a sneaky stalemate trick. Gauti Páll Jónsson has now joined the conversation.
Gauti Páll is completely lost here after a kind of “over-Gauti-ing,” as the jokers sometimes call it. Here he tried a last-ditch trick with 1.f3!?, and Black fell into the trap with 1…Nxd6??, allowing White to force a perpetual check with 2.Nh8! instead of taking the rook back.
Misery can be found everywhere, and England’s Tim Wall will no doubt want to forget his blunder. He was on the verge of scoring a fine win against a strong international master—but the knights are lurking!
A queen from f4 to e5 was an exceptionally poor move. Tim resigned after 69.Qe5?? Qxf5, and the knight fork is nasty.
Several players have been producing noteworthy results. The Estonian’s to female player Mai Narva has a performance that corresponds to a grandmaster norm.
Estonian IM Narva Mai is having a very strong Reykjavik Open! She just beat GM-elect Nico Chasin in 23 moves with white and has a PFR over 2600 on course for a GM norm, having already faced more than the required three GM opponents! @OnTheQueenside #Chess #ReykjavikOpen pic.twitter.com/ONpGRrHKHo
— ReykjavikOpenChess (@ReykjavikOpen) March 29, 2026
In the 7th round she managed a convincing win over Nico Chasin.
Chinese chess player Liu Bei has attracted well-deserved attention. He is only rated a little over 1900, yet he has produced remarkable results. He was unbeaten before today’s game, having drawn two grandmasters as well as Björn Þorfinnsson, and he has also defeated very strong opponents.
Of course, when performances like this appear, people often start whispering that something suspicious might be going on. However, that does not seem to be the case here. No statistical data from his games supports such a theory, Liu Bei has been playing good and also getting fortunate with his opponent’s mistakes. The Chinese player should be able to attain an IM norm with sufficient results in the last two rounds.
Picutres from the 7th round (use the arrow to see other picutres!)
Results:
Standings:
.
Tabatabaei leads, and Wadsworth is the only player with a realistic chance.
The eighth round of the tournament starts tomorrow, Monday at 16:00.
In Round 8, Wadsworth and Tabatabaei face each other in what is almost a deciding game. If Tabatabaei wins, he will have won the Reykjavik Open. The biggest question, however, is whether Tabatabaei can finish the Reykjavik Open with a perfect score, something that has never happened before!
Chess-Results
Games can be watched from these links:
Streamers:
- Hannah Sayce
- Tamara Kadovic
- Matthew Perchard (channel of Lularobs)
- Simon Williams
- Keti Tsatsalashvili (tbd)
Reykjavik Open Social Media:
- Instagram Icelandic Chess Federation
- TikTok Icelandic Federation
- Twitter/X Reykjavik Open
- Facebook page
Misc.:
