Round 7 & Football

I’m not sure if it was the visit of World Champion Magnus Carlsen that inspired the players, but we had our most bloodthirsty round yesterday, as only 2 games out of the top 23 boards ended in draws!!   On the top board Erwin l’Ami shocked Shakhriyar Mamedyarov when he beat him in only 21…

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Round 6 report

The main news of yesterday’s 6th round was of course the visit of World Champion Magnus Carlsen. In case you missed his excellent intervention on the live show, you can either watch the replay or just read the highlights in the following piece by Peter Doggers: http://www.chess.com/news/magnus-carlsen-visits-reykjavik-where-mamedyarov-lami-and-fier-lead-8850   As for the actual tournament, we had a…

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Round 5 report

As the tournament reaches the halfway mark, we now have a sole leader on 5/5 and that is Shakhriyar Mamedyarov! He Azeri grandmaster took advantage of a couple of early inaccuracies by Gretarsson to post a quick and clean victory. You can watch Shakhriyar explain the game on the replay of yesterday’s show here: http://new.livestream.com/chess/reykjavikopen2015 Trailing…

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The Pub Quiz is tonight!!

Dear competitors of Reykjavik Open and visitors. If you want to participate in the 2015 Reykjavik Open Pub Quiz simply show up at Hotel Plaza before 22:00 tonight. Hotel Plaza is very near the center if you know where 10-11 is, simply walk out the door and to the right and you can’t help but…

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Round 4

As per the title of a book by Andras Adorjan, “Black is OK!”.  And Black was much more than just OK during yesterday’s 4th round of the Reykjavik Open, as the players leading the black pieces scored no less than 9.5 points from the top 12 boards! From the 7 top pairings of leaders on 3/3,…

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