1/27/2016 – The last time former World Champion Vishy Anand played in an open tournament with classical time control was back in 1986. After this long break he started the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival with a draw against Szidonia Lazarne Vajda. This was the biggest surprise of the first round in which most of the favorites won. But not all of them.
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Play in the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters starts at 15.00 local time (GMT+1) on Tuesday 26 January 2016, with live commentary from GM Simon Williams and IM Elisabeth Paehtz throughout. There is play every subsequent day at this time until Thursday 4 February 2016, when the tenth final round starts earlier at 11.00 (GMT+1). Live coverage may be found via the official website.
Tradewise Chairman James Humphreys plays the first move
on the first board to open the tournament.
Top seed and defending champion Hikaru Nakamu won without much difficulty against IM Robert Bellin. After quietly improving his pieces in a Stonewall Dutch Nakamura used a tactical opportunity to reach a won position.
Vishy Anand before the start of the round (Photo: Sophie Triay)
Not a smooth start for Vishy Anand. He drew against Szidonia Lazarne Vajda
Chinese Grandmaster Yu Yangyi also had to content himself with a draw.
He played against IM Alexandre Vuelleumier
FM Matthias Bach (Elo 2301) from Germany was close to an upset.
He missed a nice tactical shot and let Indian GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly off the hook.
Untitled but number 34 on the Chinese ranking list: Xu Xiangyu (born 1999)
Valentina Gunina
Tim Harding
Lei Tingjie
Fide-Master, chess author, and stepfather of Hikaru Nakamura: Sunil Weeramantry
Weeramantry drew with Black against Alina Kashlinskaya
Number one on the junior list: Richard Rapport from Hungary
Swedish chess legend Pia Cramling
Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna
IM Nisha Mohota from India fighting hard against GM Pavel Tregubov
Indian talent Rout Padmini won with White against Kimia Moradi
Chinese GM Ni Hua
Nigel Short
Natalia Zhukova
Natalia Pogonina
IM Moulthun Ly from Australia
A chat during the game: Michael Dougherty played and lost against Harika Dronavalli
Women's World Champion Mariya Muzychuk
Chinese GM Li Chao
US Woman's Champion Irina Krush
Gata Kamsky
French GM Laurent Fressinet
Antoaneta Stefanova from Bulgaria
Bela Khotenashvili from Georgia
Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine)
Alexandra Kosteniuk from Russia
Number one on the girls ranking list: Aleksandra Goryachkina
IM Tania Sachdev is not playing in the tournament but as anchorwoman of the "Day's Play"
videos she is very active. In video #2 where she takes at a look at the opening ceremony
and talks to Vishy Anand and Hikaru Nakamura.
The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the 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 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.
Johannes FischerJohannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".
Throughout the video course, Sasikran shows various examples from his career to explain sacrifices for initiative, an attack, a better pawn structure and much more.
In this insightful video course, Grandmaster David Navara shares practical advice on when to calculate deeply in a position — and just as importantly, when not to.
The Trompowsky is especially suited for faster time controls as you don‘t have to memorise endless lines of theory, and you push your opponent out of their comfort zone after your second move.
Trompowsky Powerbook 2025 is based on 53,000 computer games from the engine room of playchess.com as well as 49,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Trompowsky Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 8727 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 316 are annotated.
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Powerbook based on more than 618 000 games in which White already sidesteps the main variations of the Sicilian on move 2.
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