2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival under way

The 2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is taking place from Monday, 24 January to Thursday, 3 February 2011 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The event, which is open to all, is the ninth in the series held on the Rock, but the first one to be sponsored by Tradewise Insurance. The rate of play: 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start. There is a special women's award for the hightest performance by a female player, with a prize of £10,000. In addition there are a number of subsiduary tournaments. Details can be found here.

Gibraltar, according to Nigel Short, is a place which you either love or hate. It’s a rock, a British naval base which was very important for controlling the entrance to the Mediterranean. From here you can see Africa, even with the naked eye, and so you could see any ships entering the Mediterranean. Historically it was just a garrison town, now the military presence has been wound down quite significantly. It has a population that numbers in the tens of thousands.

The Caleta Hotel is on the east side of the rock, the main town is on the other side, so that the players are a bit isolated. But everything is in walking distance. The runway of the airport is actually longer than the width of the peninsular, so it actually extends out into the sea.

Before the start of the tournament one of the star players, Hou Yifan, the current Women's World Chess Champion, had to pull out due to critical illness in her family. But the rest of the field was quite impressive and included...

...the Kosintseva sisters IM Nadezhda and GM Tatiana, here with GM Stewart Conquest

Top participants (rated 2500 or higher)

Organiser Brian Callaghan, Tournament Director Stuart Conquest, Miss Gibraltar
2010 Larissa Dalli, and Gibraltar Sports and Leisure Minister Edwin Reyes

Mayor of Gibraltar Tony Lombard made the first moves with the top seeded player in
the tournament Vassily Ivanshuk, while Larissa Dalli looks on

Round one wrap-up by John Saunders

For the most part, round one of the Masters saw the big stars defeat their more modestly rated opponents. World number nine Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, making his debut in Gibraltar, was too strong for French IM Jean-Baptiste Mullon, and a similar story continued down the list of boards, with only a handful of the lower-rated players escaping with results against their more illustrious rivals.

French IM Jean-Baptiste Mullon playing in round one against GM Vassily Ivanchuk

To find the first major casualty we have to track all the way down to board 28 where GM Alexandr Fier of Brazil lost to FM Tom Weber of Luxembourg. Brazil 0, Luxembourg 1 is not the sort of score you’d expect to see on a football pitch, is it? Elsewhere the theme of Europe beating the Americas continued with experienced Spanish woman international Monica Calzetta defeating 16-year-old US prodigy GM Ray Robson. One possible theory behind these results was jet lag – flying west-east is allegedly the worst form of this affliction. However, this may have been partially refuted by Canadian IM Leon Piasetski’s excellent win against French GM Jean-Pierre Le Roux.

The playing hall in the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar

Round two wrap-up by Stewart Reuben

The game of the round in a competitive sense had to be that between the young Italian/American Fabiano Caruana and the veteran superstar Viktor Korchnoi. Viktor was puzzled as to why he was on board three against the 18-year-old, but surely he has played in many Accelerated Pairing Swisses that I have run, dating back as far as 1980. John Saunders suggested it was actually 1880, but I pointed out I wasn’t actually involved in international chess organisation then. By the time we spoke over dinner, Viktor was in good humour as you would expect. He told me his previous score was 0-4 with no draws against the boy. In what other sport is an encounter at all likely between two players 60 years apart in age? Well, perhaps bridge, but in that game it is difficult to find a player under 30.

18-year-old Fabiano Caruana against octogenarian Viktor Korchnoi: 0-1!

The other game I found time to kibitz was that between Pia Cramling and Nigel Short. The advantage of looking at Nigel’s games is that he is perfectly prepared to come and analyse his games in the commentary room afterwards. He explained that he got totally confused at the point where he played 10…Bxg3 followed by 11…Bxf3. This enabled Pia to respond 12 gxf3 giving her the better game. Had he first played 10…Bxf3, then no doubt she would have played 11 Bxf3. Why did he get confused? Because he needed a caffeine injection at that point. You don’t usually get this type of insight into the reasons for people’s moves. 23 b5 would have been far more active for White and she would probably have then stood somewhat better.

Pia Cramling vs Nigel Short: 0-1 in 44 moves

People often ask how many people are playing in Gibraltar and so on. This is currently impossible to answer correctly as more people are playing in Challengers B and Amateur B. Also it is not unknown for people to turn up late. Currently we have 231 players in the Masters, the biggest ever turn-out; 55 in Challengers A; and 30 in Amateur A. There are 53 grandmasters competing, three of whom are rated over the elite level of 2700; 15 are rated between 2600-2699; 31 between 2500-2599. There are 50 different federations in the congress, counting players from Gibraltar separately. There is no doubt this is the biggest and strongest of the series. To think, in 2003 there were just 66 entries.

Top standings after two rounds

Links Official tournament site All available games in zipped PGN A selection of games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program to read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!