"Sunny" Reykjavik

Round Four

Round four saw bloody battles in the top boards. A mistake by me against Rapport allowed him to seize the initiative and he won a very clean game from then on. Hansen beat Berkes who is exactly 100 points ahead of him in another good showing of chess. Harika held no Amin in a wild game while L'Ami, Van Kampen and Grandelius all won against players considerably lower rated than them.

My lucky hat didn't help me in round four

Grandelius had a tough time focusing on his game with the spectacular view
from the playing hall, but still managed to win

Amin Bassem (left) is a monster in open tournaments, always in the top boards

Round 5

Sunny Reykjavik! For the first time since the tournament started the weather can be described as something else than "stormy, windy, cold with snow if you're lucky and rain if you're unlucky". A pleasant sun showed itself and it allowed the players to go out and explore the city a little more than the couple of blocks surrounding Harpa, the playing hall, and the hotel which is basically next to the playing site.

The five minute walk to the two streets with plenty of restaurants is not bad, but the weather has lately been making it very miserable. With the sun, though, we were reminded momentarily why Reykjavik is a pretty tourist destination.

This is the view just before entering the playing hall

The city (which feels more like a town) is very colorful
and the architecture has been described as "cartoony" by a player or two

The view from the hotel. When the sun is out, at least.

Chesswise two leaders emerged from the pack as Van Kampen beat Rapport in a crazy game while L'Ami beat Grandelius in an endgame that should very likely have been a draw. The Swedish player decided to give himself many pawn islands, the contrary of what you are supposed to do, and all his pawns dropped like flies.

After the round there was a very fun pub quiz at the "official bar" of the tournament: the Skybar. Many players showed up in pairs to answer thirty questions about chess history and chess trivia. The winning team was composed of two legendary people in chess: Helgi Olafsson, an Icelandic grandmaster playing the event, and New In Chess editor Dirk jan ten Geuzendam.

Round 6

The leaders drew a long game in which L'Ami obtained chances to win from a drawish endgame. However no repeat of round five occurred and Van Kampen was able to salvage the half point. Li Chao seemed to be simply down a pawn against Kobalia but the Russian player was nice enough to return it and they agreed to a draw in an endgame.

Walter Browne won an important game by upsetting Nils Grandelius

Carlsen is playing the event! Henrik Carlsen, Magnus' father.

Li Chao bounced back from his first round draw and is back in the leaderboard

Kobalia will be giving a lecture to amateur players tomorrow morning

Berkes suffered his second defeat of the tournament

Lamb! It's a traditional dish here in Iceland.

Replay select games

Pictures by Alin l'Ami

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.