Arctic Chess Challenge 2010 in August

Arctic Chess Challenge 2010 in August

By Sven Wisløff Nilssen

This picture was taken from the heart of Tromsø City, an island situated nearly 70 degrees north in the land of the midnight sun. Norway is known for its coastline with fjords and mountains, ocean and rocks. It has a magnificent nature and you get all of it in a micro scale in Tromsø and surroundings.

Here is my niece up on Fløya – a mountain on the mainland east of Tromsø. As you see from the picture there are many high mountains surrounding the island. They are popular for mountain-climbing, and Fløya even has a cable car that rides up the mountainside. These mountains are up to 1250 meters high, and might be rougher to climb than you first expect.

Here you see last year's winner of Arctic Chess Challenge Monica Socko from Poland. She will participate in this year's tournament too, and it was something special having her as a winner here last year. How often does a woman win a tournament with an average rating of 2590 among top ten participants? Monika did, and amongst the over 100 participants she calmly outranked was her husband, top seeded Bartosz Socko, who also will participate this year.

This year we will have a much stronger field than last year during Arctic Chess Challenge 2010, especially since the number of grandmasters has grown from 13 last year to 28 this year! We also have a record number of titled players this year – 73 and still counting! This makes the Arctic Chess Challenge the perfect place to make norms this summer – so why don't you join us? Last year we had two GM norms in Tromsø, when GM Ray Robson made his first GM norm. IM Luca Shytaj from Italy also achieved a norm north of the arctic circle. Three IM norms and a WIM norm was also achieved during nine days of chess in the biggest city of Northern Norway. It was a golden tournament last year, and in 2010 things will get bigger and better with many opportunities to those who participate.

Top player this year will be GM Alexander  Moiseenko (2669) from Ukraine. He has won numerous open tournaments, and we all remember whom he outshone in a strong field of players in 2007, when he triumphed ahead of rising stars like Vugar Gashimov and Magnus Carlsen! Second seed is Loek van Wely, who is famous for his fierce attacking play in openings like the Najdorf as Black, or the King's Indian as White – even though some of his best games are in solid positional style. He often makes attacking chess look so easy that he is a favorite among chess lovers world wide.

Among all those 28 GMs we also find the Swede GM Emanuel Berg who achieved a four-way tie for first last year. Emanuel is also known for his attractive attacking chess, and he is definitely a player you will want to follow in this tournament. The Norwegian top seed is, as so often in the past, GM Simen Agdestein, who brings with him all his students from NTG – the College of Elite Sports here in Norway. They don't have a Magnus Carlsen any more amongst them, but they sure have some talented young players who wants to take GM scalps as they use to do every year! We hope to see you too in Tromsø – this might be an opportunity to pick up some scalps yourself, or just hunt for rating during your holidays this summer. Since this is a big open with about 150 participants and a huge number of titled players, chances are great to meet one or more of those chess celebrities across the board.

The skyline of Tromsø late at night in early August. It doesn’t get much darker than
this and in the time of the midnight sun it's even brighter.

So let's talk about the field of this year's tournament. The top 20 have an average rating of 2607, which of course is a record high for a chess tournament in Norway. 40 players are rated above 2400, and the average FIDE Elo among the 149 participants is 2232. Here are the participants so far:

• Here's a list of all registered participants so far.

Ladies, all the ladies... and couples

This is WGM Natalia Zdebskaja from Ukraina who is one of many female player during this years Arctic Chess Challenge. We have many WGMs, WIMs and WFMs, and in addition a record number of chess couples:

• GM Bartosz Socko and GM Monika Socko from Polen
• GM Yuri Drozdovskij and WGM Natalia Zdebskaja from Ukraina
• GM Zoltán Gyimesi and IM Nóra Medvegy from Hungary
• GM Mateusz Bartel and WGM Marta Przezdziecka from Polen
• GM Vadim Malakhatko Vadim and WGM Anna Zozulia from Belarus
• GM Loek van Wely The Netherlands  and WIM Lorena Zepeda El Salvador
• IM Gediminas Sarakauskas and WIM Zivile Sarakauskiene from Litauen

To make a good tournament you need a good blend – a mixture of everything. During the Arctic Chess Challenge people from all over the world come together and socialize and play chess. Younger people and grownups meet, males and females, professionals and amateurs, titled and untitled, West and East – they are all there and with over 150 chessplayers this has to be a happening to remember!

This picture was actually taken at the playing venue in the Scandic Hotel Tromsø. You see one of the South Africans who visited us last year, with a stuffed polar bear inside the hotel.

This is Igor Khenkin from Germany, who last year went fishing and swimming in the Arctic Ocean. It was cold but refreshing! He is coming back this year and is ready to take part in similar social activities, he says.

Igor Khenkin was a trainer of Vladimir Kramnik during his youth, and he owns a diploma as a coach, teacher and manager in chess from the prestigious academy of sports in Moscow. Khenkin is one of many GMs who are returning to Tromsø after visiting the city once. This is a good sign for the tournament and it tells us that we have been doing something right.

If you want to take part this year here is some basic information: Tromsø is situated in Northern Norway, one hour and 45 minutes by flight from Oslo. The best airport to use in Oslo is Gardermoen. There are two air shuttles you can use from Oslo to Tromsø and back: Norwegian, a lowcost airline, and SAS.

View Arctic Chess Challenge in a larger map

The Hotel Scandic, which is five minutes by car from the airport, is the playing venue. The prices are reasonable prices – you will find all the info you need on this webpage. You can take a bus from the hotel to the city – they run quite often, but there are also other shopping possibilities close to the hotel. Mother nature is also right outside your window so you can take a walk or exercise whenever you like. An important part of the event is the social dimension. You will be offered many side events, such as mountain climbing, fishing trips, city walks and of course the by now famous barbecue party. Be sure to be there on time!

• Full information on the event and registration

Previous ChessBase reports on Tromsø