It’s Women’s Day in Iceland and so we decided to have a brief interview with Svetlana Cherednichenko, who also played last year and who came with her husband, Stelios Halkias. Next year she might bring her sister! [vsw id=”5R_tFs3umtU” source=”youtube” width=”560″ height=”315″ autoplay=”no”]
DetailsThere is almost no time to do nothing here in Reykjavik…..because of all the fun! When we are not playing the tournament or watching/following/commenting we are doing some fun side events. On Friday we had the 5th edition of the Pub Quiz. This year the questions were very hard and the winners were chess journalists…
Details“There was a man of the North, Ingólfr, who is truly said to be the first leave it for Iceland, in the time when Haraldr the Fair-Haired was sixteen winters of age (…), he settled south in Reykjavík.” This is taken from Íslendingabók, the Book of Icelanders, written in the 12th century by an Icelandic priest.…
DetailsHere’s an interview with English grandmaster Simon Williams, who won a spectacular game today in a Botvinnik Semi-Slav against the young Danish IM Simon Bekker-Jensen. This is how it finished: Bekker Jensen,S (2405) – Williams,Si (2498) 25…Nf4+ 26.Kg1 Nde2+ and resigned because of 27.Bxe2 Qg3+! and mate. [vsw id=”VGBy3fDcIAA” source=”youtube” width=”560″ height=”315″ autoplay=”no”]
DetailsAn interview with Philippine GM Wesley So, right after his interesting draw with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. So also talks about Webster University, where he’s a freshman. [vsw id=”qcDq9Dr4RFY” source=”youtube” width=”560″ height=”315″ autoplay=”no”]
DetailsSo far, one of the surprises of the tournament has been the American Adarsh Jayakumar. Despite allowing a draw against a 1600 in the first round and then getting a 1610 rated player in the 2nd round, he was remarkably on course for an IM norm after 5 rounds! He followed his sub-par performance in…
DetailsAs Oscar Wilde once quipped, the Icelanders are very smart people. “They discovered America and kept quiet about it!” This quote was one of many little stories that were told by our tour guide on Friday, when over fifty chess players went on the famous Golden Circle tour, which visits Iceland’s main touristic attractions. In…
DetailsOne 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…
DetailsWith his victory in the 4th round, Yu Yangyi became a member of the 2700+ club. After the draw in the 5th round his is still 2701 according to www.2700chess.com
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…
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