English Chess Forum

This 7-round event starts tomorrow:

Magnus Carlsen, World Champion, Elo: 2838, Norway
Fabiano Caruana, Number 3 on the world ranking list, Elo: 2817, USA
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Number 5 on the world ranking list, Elo: 2803, France
Levon Aronian, Number 9 on the world ranking list, Elo: 2774, Armenia
Arkadij Naiditsch, Number 41 on the world ranking list, Elo: 2702, Azerbaijan
Hou Yifan, Number 110 on the world ranking list, Elo: 2649, China
Matthias Blübaum, Number 148 on the world ranking list, Elo: 2632, Germany
Georg Meier, Number 154 on the world ranking list, Elo: 2630, Germany

Pictures of the playing hall for the massive Open in Karlsruhe: https://twitter.com/hashtag/grenkechess ... ess.com%2F

Round 1: (2pm BST)
Vachier-Lagr. (0) 2803 — Naiditsch, A. (0) 2702
Bluebaum, M. (0) 2632 — Carlsen, M. (0) 2838
Aronian, L. (0) 2774 — Meier, Georg (0) 2630
Hou, Yifan (0) 2649 — Caruana, F. (0) 2817

The Grenke Open running alongside it has 1202 particpants and is the largest Open in the world.

Chris Rice wrote: The Grenke Open running alongside it has 1202 particpants and is the largest Open in the world.

It's not all one tournament though. If you are allowed to aggregate over multiple sections, didn't one of Stewart Reuben's Islingtons of the early 1970s hold a record?

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Chris Rice wrote: The Grenke Open running alongside it has 1202 particpants and is the largest Open in the world.

It's not all one tournament though. If you are allowed to aggregate over multiple sections, didn't one of Stewart Reuben's Islingtons of the early 1970s hold a record?

Who said an Open had to be just one section? The organisers have got around this by skillfully labelling each section an Open http://www.grenkechessopen.de/en/a-open and there are 684 players in the A-Open section etc.

[Event "GRENKE Chess Open 2017"]
[Site "Karlsruhe GER"]
[Date "2017.04.13"]
[Round "1.32"]
[White "Barrenechea Bahamonde, Gustavo"]
[Black "Epishin, Vladimir"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B06"]
[WhiteElo "2126"]
[BlackElo "2574"]
[PlyCount "53"]
[EventDate "2017.04.13"]
1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c6 4. Bc4 b5 5. Bb3 a5 6. Qf3 e6 7. e5 d5 8. exd6 Ra7 9. a4 b4 10. Ne4 f5 11. Nc5 Bxd4 12. Be3 Bxb2 13. Rd1 Bc3+ 14. Kf1 Nf6 15. Bxe6 Nbd7 16. Qxc6 Ng4 17. Bf4 Kf8 18. Bxf5 Nxc5 19. Bxc8 Nd7 20. Nf3 Kg7 21. Bxd7
Rxd7 22. h3 Nf6 23. Ne5 Ra7 24. Be3 Bxe5 25. Bxa7 Nd7 26. Bd4 Rf8 27. Bxe5+ 1-0

There was something strange I saw on Twitter to the effect that the games played on Good Frioday couldn't be transmitted live because of German law. Anybody know what this is about?

Chris Rice wrote:Round 1: (2pm BST)
Vachier-Lagr. (0) 2803 — Naiditsch, A. (0) 2702
Bluebaum, M. (0) 2632 — Carlsen, M. (0) 2838
Aronian, L. (0) 2774 — Meier, Georg (0) 2630
Hou, Yifan (0) 2649 — Caruana, F. (0) 2817

Chess24 say they are starting commentary by Peter Leko and Lawrence Trent 15 minutes before the commencement of round 1.

JustinHorton wrote:There was something strange I saw on Twitter to the effect that the games played on Good Frioday couldn't be transmitted live because of German law. Anybody know what this is about?

IT has to do with the status of Good Friday, it is seen as "quiet"holiday, therefore many events especially also sport events see some restrictions and are run as "closed" event at that day, not open to the public. From my point of view it makes no sense at all, but organisers try to avoid getting any problems.

Thanks very much. I figured it had to be along those lines,with presumably no football matches or other sporting events broadcast either.

Hou is well on top against Caruana, on the board and on the clock too for that matter.

And she's beaten him.

Very impressive from her, but Fab seems to be struggling lately.

Good to see Hou Yifan back on track, but I agree that Fabiano seems to have problems against the Spanish at present.
MVL is going down with White against Naiditsch and it's not clear that Carlsen and Aronian will do more than draw.

I imagine Caruana is also still struggling with what happened at the US Championships.

Is that Hou's best win? She's been well placed against a few of the top players but struggled to get over the line, if I recall (at least one game against Giri comes to mind).