Chess on a cliff – super tournament in Norway next May

The world's number one ranked chess player and a world class Norwegian songwriter, have together created a video to show off Stavanger Region, which is host to Norway Chess 2013. The world's best chess players will compete in the beautiful venues around the region, in Norway's first super tournament. Magnus Carlsen is one of the initiators behind the tournament, along with Hanne Sørvaag created a unique video that combines spectacular scenery, chess and music.

Norway Chess 2013 will be one of the strongest super tournaments ever. Four players are confirmed, in addition to Magnus Carlsen. They are Levon Aronian (Armenia), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Vishy Anand (India) and Wang Hao (China). The Norway Chess 2013 Super Tournament will be held from May 7th to 18th 2013 in several different locations in the Stavanger-region:

• Quality Residence Hotel, Sandnes (5 rounds)
• Stavanger Konserthus, Stavanger (1 round)
• Fabrikkhallen til Aarbakke AS, Bryne (1 round)
• Flor & Fjære, Sør-Hidle (1 round)

Click to explore on Google Maps

By using a variety of historical locations the organisers wish to get maximum attention for the Stavanger region, which has already expressed an interest in repeating the tournament in the district. This time around the tournament will include:

• A super tournament with a number of players from the top ten in the world
• A school tournament with hundreds of children
• A celebrity tournament with a range of celebrities who will show their chess skills

To promote the event the organiser produced a music video with Hanne Margrethe Fredriksen Sørvaag, 33, a Norwegian singer/songwriter, who was born in Stavanger.

Hanne Margrethe released her first album, You Know Me (Sony/Columbia), under the artist name Paris in 2002, an album that gave her three radio hits in Norway. Her second album, Talk of the Town (Diamond Road Music), was released in 2006 under her own name. The first single from the album was "I Don't Feel a Thing". Apart from her career as a performing artist, Hanne has also been successful writing for other artists, notably "My Destiny" (co-written by Tim Baxter and Harry Sommerdahl), which was performed by Katharine McPhee in the American Idol finals in 2006. Several other international and Norwegian artists have performed her songs. She often cites Sheryl Crow as a major influence on her music. [Source: Wikipedia]

Norway Chess made the promotion video with scenes of Magnus playing against Kristoffer Madland, a Norwegian Youth Champion, on a big chess board on top of the famous Pulpit Rock above Lysefjorden in Norway.

The cliff is called Preikestolen or Prekestolen in Norwegian, and in English Preacher's Pulpit or Pulpit Rock. It is a massive cliff 604 metres (1,982 feet) above Lysefjorden. The top of the cliff is approximately 25 by 25 metres (82 by 82 feet), almost flat, and is a famous tourist attraction in Norway, visited visited by up to 200,000 people who have to take a 3.8 km (2.4 mi.) hike to reach the top. Preikestolenis one of the most visited natural tourist attractions in Norway.

The filming was done both from helicopter and by a film crew on Pulpit Rock. The event got a lot of attention from the media in Norway: NRK, VG, Stavanger Aftenblad (all reports in Norwegian)

This report in VG is accompanied by the following video interview:

You can see many more VG video reports with Magnus here. But let us proceed to the promotional video itself, which was shown to the board of Norway Chess 2013 and journalists at the cinema in Sandnes today. You will have to have strong nerves for some of the scenes – for instance Magnus lying down at the edge peering down at the fjord.

If you plan on visiting the Norway Chess 2013 Super Tournament in May next year be sure to plan Pulpit rock in. Full information is available on the event home page.

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