GAMMA Reykjavík Open 2018 - Bobby Fischer Memorial March 6th - 14th

[Kevin Thurlow]

https://www.reykjavikopen.com/

http://chess-results.com/tnr304881.aspx ... ilen=99999

238 players at present (it changes every day), from 2715 to 1020 and a handful of unrated. 16 English, 1 Scottish, 5 Irish at present. I wonder if the Australian is travelling specially.

Accelerated pairing system...

[Tim Harding]

https://www.reykjavikopen.com/

http://chess-results.com/tnr304881.aspx ... ilen=99999

238 players at present (it changes every day), from 2715 to 1020 and a handful of unrated. 16 English, 1 Scottish, 5 Irish at present. I wonder if the Australian is travelling specially.

Accelerated pairing system...

Are you sure? It wasn't accelerated last year.

[LawrenceCooper]

https://www.reykjavikopen.com/

http://chess-results.com/tnr304881.aspx ... ilen=99999

238 players at present (it changes every day), from 2715 to 1020 and a handful of unrated. 16 English, 1 Scottish, 5 Irish at present. I wonder if the Australian is travelling specially.

Accelerated pairing system...

Are you sure? It wasn't accelerated last year.

https://www.reykjavikopen.com/info/tournament-rules/

[Tim Harding]

Ah yes. One round shorter than last year also, and Anish Giri not coming back.

[Kevin Thurlow]

The Candidates starts soon, so a number of very strong players won't be playing Reykjavik.

Simon Williams is doing the commentary.

[Kevin Thurlow]

And the one round shorter, there's a rest day on Fischer's 75th birthday, when there's a Chess960 (ok, Fischerrandom) tournament, the European Championship no less. Non Europeans can play, the title goes to the top European.

[Tim Harding]

One effect of the accelerated pairings is already clear in the first round. Kevin's rating is only a few points below what mine was at Reykjavik 2017.
I had to play GM Jordan van Foreest on a live board (2584 v 2016); he is playing Irish junior Peter Carroll (1733 v 1999) somewhere in the middle of the room and will have to win a couple of games before he meets a GM.

Maybe a lot of top players have stayed away in order to follow the Candidates. Last year we had Giri, Andreikin, Jobava over 2700 and Almasi (2696).
Kamsky (2677) is third seed this time; last year he was about 12th (and had a walkover in round 1).

I wonder what has happened on board 12: 1 d4 e6 1-0. Presumably it's either a mistake or Lenderman forgot to turn his phone off.

PS: Lenderman's game seems to be running after all.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I just have to beat the IM in round 2, although he seems rather lowly-rated. Daniel Fernandez won an ending with RN+1 each, not sure how (unless I didn't see the position properly).

The bar has a happy hour with half price drinks, which are still Wetherspoons x 2! Not the bar's fault, taxes etc are high.

[Ian Thompson]

I just have to beat the IM in round 2, although he seems rather lowly-rated.

Perhaps this article the IM wrote explains why.

[LawrenceCooper]

Round 2 result: 5 GM L'Ami, Erwin (1) 2634 0 - 1 IM Haria, Ravi (1) 2424

[LawrenceCooper]

I just have to beat the IM in round 2,

Duly accomplished

[Kevin Thurlow]

and apologies for saying "he", not "she"... I thought the name was familiar as well.

Managed to win a pawn, get to a R+B ending, exchange rooks, have B+2 vs B+1 on the queenside, then won the last pawn.

My reward is a young junior FM.

Nigel Povah played Praggnanandhaa and was almost drawing it.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Note to Roger - The clocks add the second 30 minutes after you have played move 40 (or pressed the clock 40 times).

[Roger de Coverly]

Note to Roger - The clocks add the second 30 minutes after you have played move 40 (or pressed the clock 40 times).

Presumably there's a 30 second increment. That's the way it worked when increments were first introduced. It was at the 2012 British that the confusion mode was extended to increment based timings. I'm not sure whether arbiters realised that the clock was always counting, and in increment mode, with continuous recording it is always possible to validate that the clock and the manual move count recorded by the players is in synch.

[Tim Harding]

Note to Roger - The clocks add the second 30 minutes after you have played move 40 (or pressed the clock 40 times).

Presumably there's a 30 second increment. That's the way it worked when increments were first introduced. It was at the 2012 British that the confusion mode was extended to increment based timings. I'm not sure whether arbiters realised that the clock was always counting, and in increment mode, with continuous recording it is always possible to validate that the clock and the manual move count recorded by the players is in synch.

I think Kevin means not the 30 second increment per move but the extra 30 minutes added when the first time control is reached. In nearly all the tournaments I have played in which had extra time (including Reykjavik 2017) the clock only added the 30 minutes when one player or other had used up his/her initial time allowance.