Tenth Gibraltar Chess Festival under way

The 2012 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is taking place from Tuesday, 24th January to Thursday, 2nd February 2012 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The event, which is open to all, is the tenth in the series held on the Rock, the second to be sponsored by Tradewise Insurance. The rate of play: 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start. The festival can be followed online thanks to the technical back-up of Gibtelecom, Gibraltar’s main telecommunications provider, whose loyal support over ten years has been crucial to the festival’s development and success.

The Gibraltar International Chess Festival began as a much smaller event in 2003. Its popularity has grown year on year, and today well over 300 participants, players of all levels, return to the Rock every January, many calling Gibraltar their favourite event on the chess calendar. For eleven days the festival venue is transformed into a hive of chess activity. Arriving here from all corners of the world, players can be sure that old friendships will be renewed, and – win or lose – new ones made.

Opening

At the opening reception on Monday night Gibraltar Culture and Sports Minister Steven Linares weclomed all the players and thanked them for coming to the Rock to play in the tournament. Tournament director, Stuart Conquest, addressed the familiar faces in the gathering in the main hall by opening with well wishes for a successful tournament from the current World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand. It was then up to Miss Gibraltar 2011, Michelle Gillingwater Pedersen, to draw the pairings for the opening top six games.

In the above picture we see GM Stuart Conquest, Culture and Sports Minister Steven Linares, Mis Gibraltar 2011, Michelle Gillingwater and Brian Callaghan, who has been awarded the prestoigious O.B.E. for his services to tourism and chess.

Michelle Gillingwater helped draw the pairings for the opening top six games. First up was Peter Svidler from Russia, a former winner in Gibraltar, and a huge cricket fan. So it was not surprising that he drew a white cricket ball received with much approval from the players.

Monday evening also saw the launch of the first Gibraltar stamps featuring chess. One of the pairings for yesterday between Adams and Zhukova, was an exact repetition in both names and colours as that featured on the 30p stamp.

The Gibraltar stamps have been issued to commemorate the Chess Festival's 10th Annversary. The games featured on the stamps have been specially chosen as representing the best of the many thousands contested in Gibraltar over the past decade. All the players shown are grandmasters, two are women. Pia Cramling (Sweden) has played in all ten Gibraltar festivals, while Natalia Zhukova (Ukraine) won the top female award in 2010. Michael Adams, Nigel Short (both England) and Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine) are all former Gibraltar champions. Viktor Bologan (Moldova) and Fabiano Caruana (Italy) are elite players with aggressive styles popular with the public. Chess legend Viktor Korchnoi (Switzerland) fought two World Championship matches with arch-rival Anatoly Karpov. The set is available here: Set: £3.07 (First Day Cover Price: £3.67) Pack Set: £3.72 Gutter Pairs Set: £6.14 First Day Cover: £3.67 Complete issue: Price: £16.60

Top results from round one

Favourites all win in round one

GM Peter Svidler (2749) vs IM Jovanka Houska (2414) in round one: 1-0 in 41 moves

GM Michael Adams (2724) vs GM Natalia Zhukova (2426): 1-0 in 33 moves

IM Robert Aloma Vidal (2431) vs GM Almasi Zoltan (2717): 0-1 in 33 moves

GM Le Quang Liem (2714) vs IM Ismael Karim (2405): 1-0 in 28 moves

IM Alex Astaneh Lopez (2414) vs GM Polgar Judit (2710): 0-1 in 23 moves

Top ten games for JavaScript replay

Links Official tournament site Download games from all groups 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.