Second Ruy López International Chess Festival in Mérida

Second Ruy Lopez Chess Festival

The Second Ruy López International Chess Festival is taking place in Mérida, Spain, from April 4th-13th, 2008. The main event is a category XV round robin with eight players.

Standings after five rounds

After five rounds of play top seed Michael Adams of England is in the lead, having won three games and drawn two. He is followed by second seed Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia, who is followed by third seed Zhang Penxiang from China. In fourth places is fourth seed Koneru Humpy from India, and in fifth place fifth seed Fabiano Caruana. 14-year-old Hou Yifan spoilt the perfect Elo alignment of the standings by overtaking sixth seed Julio Granda Zuniga. There are more coincidences to come – material for study by our quirky friend GM James Plaskett.

Picture gallery

The venue during the openings ceremony

The musical part of the festivities

The number one seed, Michael Adams, picks the number one starting number

The second-strongest femal player of all time, Koneru Humpy, gets the two

The world's third-strongest female player, Hou Yifan, gets the three (talk about coincidences!)

Fabiano Caruana is the fifth seed and the seventh oldest player – sorry, we couldn't find anything here

"Manolo" Perez Candelario, second of Alexei Shirov and intrepid ice explorer

The world's second-youngest grandmaster (at 15) Fabiano Caruana

14-year-old Chinese WGM Hou Yifan, watched by her main rival Koneru Humpy of India

A reception with the Mayor of Mérida in the Town Hall

The players in front of the town hall (Sargissian, Perez, Humpy, Hou, Zhao, Caruana, Granda)

Chief commentator in Mérida and on Playchess: Spanish journalist Leontxo Garcia

All photos by Jorge Armestar Marroquin for the official web site

Links Official web site (in Spanish) Photo album with many more great (but uncaptioned) pictures Click to download all games in PGN You can use ChessBase Light to read, replay and analyse the PGN games. It also gives you immediate access to play and watch events on Playchess.com server.