Gibraltar: Most GMs unscathed

The traditional Gibraltar Chess Congress has begun! The 12th edition of this event is under way, but the main attraction - the Masters Section, will begin tomorrow. The Masters section entries are closed and the pairings are ready for the tournament to begin.

Opening Ceremony

One of Gibraltar's top tourist attractions, St Michael's Cave, a large cave of natural beauty inside the rock was the venue for one of the main social events of this year’s 2014 Tradewise Chess Festival. Gibraltar’s Minister for Tourism, Commercial Affairs, Public Transport and the Port, Neil Costa, hosted a dinner in this beautiful and unique setting in the Cathedral Chamber of St Michael’s Cave located within the Upper Rock Nature Reserve.

Bela Khotenashvili and Lela Javakhishvili, both from Georgia, arrive to the ceremony

The Cathedral Cave opened to visitors has since the 1960’s been used as an auditorium with a seating capacity of 400 and has staged countless classical and rock concerts and large drama, musicals and dance productions and Son et Lumière shows. On many occasions it has been the setting for the Miss Gibraltar Pageants and the Gibraltar Song Festival. In his address Minister Costa spoke of how prestigious it was for Gibraltar to host the most important open chess tournament in the world in its shores.

Representing the players, top chess journalist, Leontxo Garcia, spoke of the benefits of chess as a very powerful educational tool. He praised the magnificent organisation. He said: “I am not talking only about how well this Tradewise chess congress is organised from the technical point of view, but also about the social atmosphere around the tournaments, and the parallel activities. For this reason, I think this is the world’s best organised chess festival. This is not just my personal opinion, but the general opinion. And this wonderful evening in such a splendid surrounding is a clear example of it.” The evening was filled with music provided by the band of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment and the Corps of Drums who gave a magnificent display. As the night began there was a guard of honour provided by the members of the Gibraltar Re-enactment Association.

Inside the cave the guests were greeted with music by the
Royal Gibraltar Regiment and more members of the Re-enactment Association

Presently St Michael’s Cave is one of Gibraltar's top tourist attractions and is open daily to the public receiving almost 1,000,000 visitors a year. The cave formations are colourfully lit and visitors can read displays documenting the caves' history. St. Michael's Cave can be reached by car, taxi, cable car or by foot. Tickets include entrance to two of the other major tourist sites on The Rock: the Moorish Castle and the Great Siege Tunnels. Thought to be bottomless and first mentioned in the writings of Roman travel writer Pomponius Melia in 45CE, St Michael's has seen millions of visitors since then though not all with tourism in mind. During the Second World War the cave was prepared as an emergency hospital, but was never used.

Main table with (l to r) Tara MacGowran, Brian Callaghan, Minister Neil Costa, Tamara Stewart-Wilson, James Humphreys. Also at the table was top seeded player Michael Adams

Rounds one and two

Tomashevsky was one of many top GMs held to a draw today

Round one in the Masters section started with very few surprises. You have to go all the way down to board 19 to find an upset, where Badrakh Galmandakh, rated only 2225, held Viktor Bologan to a draw. The biggest upset of the dayw as probably Sarai Sanchez's win over Kiril Georgiev. The following gives you a pretty good idea of how the day went:

Round two was however far more interesting. Already many grandmaster vs. grandmaster duels were seen and some of them were absolutely crazy. Take the following game for example:

Top 15 results:

Ivanchuk was in a tough game definitely against the young Spaniard player Larino Nieto. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had the opinion that Larino Nieto was even better at some point and could have caused more problems against his higher rated opponent had he played more accurately. Despite the few draws on the top boards most results did go according expectations. Porper can definitely count his lucky stars drawing Short from a pawn down position, while Rapport tried for over 120 moves to beat Sachdev in a rook and knight vs. rook endgame, but to no avail.

Top women are already facing each other:
Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) beat Judith Fucs (Germany) in a tense Caro-Kann

Sophia Milliet held Zhao Xue to a draw

Pogonina could not beat her 2304 rated opponent in round two and has 1.5/2

The man, the legend: Ulf Andersson active and with 1.5/2

Khotenashvili was upset by WGM Jovana Vojinovic from Serbia in round 2!

Zhukova was paired against Navara who played a spectacular game to beat her

Sachdev put a solid defense against Rapport and held a long draw

Round three pairings, top 15 boards:

Links Official tournament site The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.