The chess continues – for a thousand years
11/5/2004 – The 36th Chess Olympiad ended on the 31st of October, and hundreds of players left Mallorca. But 122 players from 34 different countries remained to take part in the International Open of Calvià – the first, we are told, of a thousand. Here's another look at the ruggedly beautiful Mediterranean island, including fledgling pictures by a world champion
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Calvià
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Calvià is not satisfied with hosting a Chess Olympiad, it is continuing with an ambitious tournament calendar which includes the First Chess Festival de Ajedrez 2004, which is currently under way. 122 players from 34 different countries have collected in Calvià – from Estonia, Netherlands, Indonesia, Argentina, Chile, Philippines, Urugauy, Paraguay, Spain, England, Germany, Croatia, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Costa Rica, Serbia and Montenegro, Israel, Sweden, Austria, Bangladesh, France, Colombia, Poiland, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Italy, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Iraq, Mexico, Venezuela, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates. "If these people meet anywhere in the world," the tournament bulletin says, "they can only communicate with signs. But in front of the chessboard they are able to experience together the exciting adventure of exploring the mysterious byways of the Grünfeld or the Sicilian, to deeply understand the plans of the opponent, expressed through the movement of an arm and the change of position of a piece on the imaginary battlefield." The bulletin also quotes a memorable thought of Siegbert Tarrasch:
"I feel some pity for those who pass through life without discovering the beauties of chess. Because chess, like music, like love, has the virtue to make people happy."
The festival is being held in one of the buildings of the Polideportivo de Magaluf, a giant sports complex, where we can see tennis and basketball being played.
Tennis at night in the Polideportivo de Magaluf
The main section in the playing hall
Top seed Sergey Tiviakov (right) of the Netherlands in round five
GM Zenon Franco Ocampos of Paraguay, who won his first three games
Young English talent David Howell (13) is working on his Elo to claim his IM
title
Another Brit, Stuart Conquest, who also started with a clean score
A special section for the blind, with pegged chess sets and audio clocks.
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Sepcial report: pictures from the island
The island of Mallorca, with the district of Calvià
The bay of Magaluf, where the main hotels and venue of the Olympiad were
located
The hotel rooms in the players' hotel
Flamenco display in the evening
The beach front directly next to the Sol Antillas/Barbados hotels
Snorkeling in the crystal-clear 21°C waters in the early days of November!
4000-foot high mountains, which lunatic tourists will spend five hours scaling
The view from the top of a 4000-foot mountain
Peacocks in the Reserva (natural reserve) Mallorca on the Puig de Galatzó
A well-fed, relaxed and contented bear, looking very much like
a GM in the hotel lounge after a 1-0 game, dinner and a few drinks.
A friendly young free-flying mouse buzzard named Eva
Pono's pictures
The following pictures were taken by budding photographer (and FIDE ex world champion) Ruslan Ponomariov, who is the proud owner of a Nikon Coolpix 4500. Ruslan has learnt how to press the shutter release button and, economically, nothing else. Here are his fledgeling photographic attempts.
A nice picture of the hotel by the bay in Magaluf (Calvià)
A grandmaster friend making aquaintance with The Waves
The swimming pool of the hotel, as seen by the Coolpix 4500
A little photoshopping ages the picture to the nostalgic style Ruslan prefers
The photographer catches himself (arrow) in a mirrored wall
We did say "budding photographer", didn't we? Full bloom still to
come...
We look forward to receiving lot of interesting pictures
by Ruslan from all over the world.
Frederic Friedel
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