King's Tournament Medias – pictures from the opening ceremony

by ChessBase
6/11/2011 – Friday afternoon the six players of the Fifth Kings Tournamentin Medias gathered together in the Natural Gas Documentation and Information Centre to meet the sponsors, Romgaz, execute the drawing of lots and speak to the journalists. The ceremony had a world champion present: Ognean Mihnea-Ionut, World School under seven Champion. Photographic impressions by Frederic Friedel.
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5th Kings Tournament 2011 in Medias, Romania

ROMGAZ and the Chess Club Society "Elisabeta Polihroniade” of Bucharest are staging a double round robin tournament with six top GMs: the world's second highest ranked player, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who at the age of 20 has an Elo rating of 2815. Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk, currently the world's number five, rated 2776; Sergey Karjakin, former child prodigy and youngest GM of all time, now playing for Russia, rated 2776; top US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, clear winner of this year's Wijk aan Zee tournament; Teimour Radjabov, at 2744 one of Azerbaijan's top GMs, and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, the best Romanian player, currently rated 2659. The competition is taking place from June 11th to 22nd 2011 in Medias, Romania.

Impressions from the Opening Ceremony

By Frederic Friedel


The Natural Gas Documentation and Information Centre where the event will be staged


Hikaru Nakamura (right) with his permanent second Kris Littlejohn


Top seed and favourite Magnus Carlsen


Former child prodigy Sergey Karjakin


Romania's top GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu


Teimour Radjabov with his mother (really!)


The Mayor of Medias Teodor Neamtu


Lucian Stancu, Vice General Director of Romgaz


FIDE representative Nigel Freeman, who held his greeting speech in Romanian!


Henrik Carlsen, father of the top seed, speaks for his son...


... who must then speak to the visitors himself


Speaking for his boss: Vassily Ivanchuk's second Šarūnas Šulskis of Lithuania.
Ivanchk was on his way from the airport, after a delayed flight.


King's Tournament President Elisabeta Polihroniade speaks...


... and then introduces a full-fledged World Champion


Ognean Mihnea-Ionut, reigning World School Champion under seven


Kings' Tournament director Emil Danut Gabar


Magnus with his sister, 14-year-old Signe Carlsen


The chief arbiter Faik Gasanov


The players with Tournament President Elisabeta Polihroniade and RomGAZ top brass


Florin Opriscan, Assistant of the General Director, Mihai Opriscan, PR director,
Eleonora Patrui, Chief Assistant of the General Director


After the ceremony the TV and radio journalists beleaguer one of the players


Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu and his wife Nicoleta


Links

The 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 a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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Topics: Kings Tournament 2011
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