Celebrate winter with some Barcelona sun

V Sunway Sitges International Festival

The 5th edition of the Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival will be held in Sitges, Barcelona, Spain from the 13th to the 23rd of December 2018 at the Hotel Playa Golf Sitges. The open tournaments are each 10 rounds, with one game per day, played under the Swiss system (tournament rules) and will be held in two groups:

• Group A: open to all players with a FIDE rating of at least 1700 ELO
• Group B: open to players with FIDE Rating of below 2000 points and who have not surpassed a rating of 2100 FIDE’s ELO points in the last 3 years

The total prize fund for this tournament is EUR €27,155 with €5,000 for the Group A winner. There are also various category prizes on offer.

In addition to the prize fund, ChessBase is providing 20 FritzTrainer video series, Fritz 16 chess engine and a ChessBase 15 package, and also assisting with the live webcast which will be hosted by IM Anna Rudolf, and feature commentary by GM Miguel Illescas, Levan Aroshidze, Jordi Magem and Leontxo Garcia.

The beautiful venue of the event! | Photo: Sunway

Just down the coast from Barcelona...

So far, 162 players from 39 federations have confirmed their entries for the Group A tournament which include 104 titled players (31 GM, 27 IM, 4 WGM, 4 WIM, 20 FM, 2 WFM, 15 CM, 1 WCM). The top seed of the event is Super GM Dmitry Andreikin with an elo of 2719 followed by the evergreen GM Vassily Ivanchuk. The Rating average for this group is 2239! It will, therefore, be a great opportunity for norm seekers to get their IM/GM norms.

Group A starting list (top 20)

Complete list for Group A

A total of 92 players from 23 federations have enrolled in the Group B Open, with an average rating of 1637. This will serve as a great opportunity for players with a rating less than 1700 ELO to gain international exposure and some ELO points.

Complete player list for group B

The 4th edition was won by Aravindh Chithambaram with 7½/9 points and he also crossed the 2600 mark! | Photo: Supriya Bhat

The venue Hotel Sunway Playa Golf Sitges is the official hotel of the Sunway Chess festival. It is situated in a scenic location on the beach. Players are given the Sunway apartments for stay and the organizers also provide the visiting players with bicycles for the entire duration of the tournament. Riding the bicycle along the beach every day is always a refreshing experience before and after the games.

Atul Dahale takes you on a brief video tour

The heated indoor pool also looks refreshing! | Photo: Supriya Bhat

Awonder Liang was one of the GMs who gave simul exhibition last year! | Photo: Supriya Bhat

There is one game per day, played in the afternoon at 16:30, beginning Friday, December 14th, plus tons of side events like blitz tournaments, simultaneous exhibitons with grandmasters, daily movie screenings, a cocktail masterclass, tapas workshop, and more (full schedule)! 

Links

• Official site