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The Tradewise Gibraltar Open is one of the strongest and best-organised events of its kind in the world. Anyone who knows the moves (and pays the entry fee) can take part, and perhaps face top participants like Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave or Hikaru Nakamura. The tournament lasts from January 23 (opening) to February 4. The location is very balmy: ten hours of daylight, average day temperature 16° C, warm sea temperatures, beautiful scenery. Paradise!
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Fabiano Caruana - 2827 [USA], Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - 2796 [FRA], Hikaru Nakamura - 2785 [USA], Vassily Ivanchuk - 2752 [Ukraine], Michael Adams - 2751 [England], Peter Svidler - 2748 [Russia], Veselin Topalov - 2739 [Bulgaria], Boris Gelfand - 2721 [Israel], Hou Yifan - 2651 [China].
| No. | Name | FED | Rtg | |
| 1 | GM | Caruana Fabiano | USA | 2827 |
| 2 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | FRA | 2796 |
| 3 | GM | Nakamura Hikaru | USA | 2785 |
| 4 | GM | Ivanchuk Vassily | UKR | 2752 |
| 5 | GM | Adams Michael | ENG | 2751 |
| 6 | GM | Svidler Peter | RUS | 2748 |
| 7 | GM | Topalov Veselin | BUL | 2739 |
| 8 | GM | Yu Yangyi | CHN | 2738 |
| 9 | GM | Vitiugov Nikita | RUS | 2724 |
| 10 | GM | Gelfand Boris | ISR | 2721 |
A super-tournament in the form of Tata Steel Chess is currently in progress at Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands. An open Swiss tournament can hardly be called as a super tournament. However, if you were to take the top ten seeds of the Gibraltar Masters 2017, it would be as strong as an elite round-robin event! The average rating of the top ten seeds is a whopping 2758!
The most interesting part here is that just about any player has a chance of winning the tournament. Out of the top ten eight players have played in the Candidates at some point in their life. The top group can clearly be broken up into two sections: Youth vs Experience. Fabiano Caruana, MVL and Hikaru Nakamura are the favourites thanks to their youth and higher energy levels. When it comes to experience we have Vassily Ivanchuk, Michael Adams, Peter Svidler, Veselin Topalov and Boris Gelfand. We only need to remember the Qatar Masters Open to know what Yu Yangyi is capable of. The Chinese player finished first in 2014 and joint first with Magnus Carlsen ins 2015. Few more players who will add glamour to this event are the Latvian Igor Kovalenko, the evergreen Nigel Short, the strongest female player in the world Hou Yifan and the aggressive and imaginative Emil Sutovsky.
There all in all 248 participants from 53 different countries. 172 players are titled! A massive 71 grandmasters with 32 being above 2600. Interspersed with high quality chess would be different events like team blitz of four, team blitz of two, master classes with top players and the most awaited "Battle of Sexes."
Photos by John Saunders
The Rock of Gibraltar. Most of the Rock's upper area is covered by a nature reserve, which is home to around 300 Barbary macaques. These macaques attract a large number of tourists each year.
Boris Gelfand having a nice time on his first visit to Gibraltar!
Boris and Ju Wenjun gave a tandem simul of 20 boards on 22nd of January. The score was 18 wins and two draws out of the twenty. One particularly interesting game was the following:
GM Raymond Keene spoke about the 1978 Baguio Match between Karpov and Korchnoi. He was the perfect person to speak on this subject as he had been Korchnoi's second at the event!
The opening ceremony was hosted by Stuart Conquest with Miss Gibraltar Kayley Mifsud
The Scottish Pipers livened up the atmosphere!
The top seed Fabiano Caruana has the white pieces in round one
Maxime has been having some rough results lately. He would be looking to flex his Najdorf muscles in this open tournament!
Hikaru Nakamura was in good spirits at the opening ceremony
After what he did at the World Rapid and Blitz (beating Carlsen 2-0), I would definitely say Ivanchuk is a favourite to win at the Gibraltar Masters
Michael Adams playing style is so solid that he is always one of the favourites to finish at the top
Chess fans nowadays prefer Peter Svidler to explain to them the nuances of the Berlin through his excellent commentary, but I guess watching him in action wouldn't be any less exciting!
Tania Sachdev is in Gibraltar and she will be the host for the "Play of the day". Here's an example of the Play of the day from round ten:
| Bo. | No. | Name | Pts. | Result | Pts. | Name | No. |
| 1 | 1 | Caruana Fabiano | 0 | 0 | Rakesh Kumar Jena | 132 | |
| 2 | 128 | Sodoma Jan | 0 | 0 | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | 2 | |
| 3 | 3 | Nakamura Hikaru | 0 | 0 | Gulamali Kazim | 130 | |
| 4 | 126 | Papp Petra | 0 | 0 | Ivanchuk Vassily | 4 | |
| 5 | 5 | Adams Michael | 0 | 0 | Vuilleumier Alexandre | 127 | |
| 6 | 131 | Bellon Lopez Juan Manuel | 0 | 0 | Svidler Peter | 6 | |
| 7 | 7 | Topalov Veselin | 0 | 0 | Paehtz Thomas | 121 | |
| 8 | 123 | Sahl Bjarke | 0 | 0 | Yu Yangyi | 8 | |
| 9 | 9 | Vitiugov Nikita | 0 | 0 | Siva Mahadevan | 124 | |
| 10 | 125 | Bellin Robert | 0 | 0 | Gelfand Boris | 10 |
LinksThe games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the 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 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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