Wednesday 29 January 2014

Gibraltar 2014

Probably the worlds best Open tournament, the Gibraltar Open, started yesterday, attracting the usual strong field. The top section has 254 players, including 68(!) GM's. Top seed is Michael Adams, and the top 10 players are all rated over 2700.
With such a large field, and no accelerated pairings, the first round gap was 467 rating points (ie the difference in the rating of the players on board 1). Nonetheless there were a few upsets, with 4 GM's getting taken down by their lower rated opponent (for an example see below). But most survived and there are already GM v GM match ups on the top 4 boards.
Coverage of the Open, as well as the supporting events can be found at http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/ 


Tseitlin,Mark D (2389) - Knudsen,Jes West (1874) [A00]
Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2014 The Caleta Hotel - Gibraltar (1.100), 28.01.2014


3 comments:

Garvin said...

Did this event used to use accelerated pairings?

Shaun Press said...

I don't think it ever did, but given the propensity for English arbiters (and this is an ECF event) to use them at the British Championship, I cannot rule this out.

Garvin said...

Accelerated pairings were used in 2012: http://www.tabladeflandes.com/internacionales_2012/Gibraltar_Chess_Festival_2012.php

And in 2011: http://chess-results.com/tnr43699.aspx?lan=1

So the ending of acceleration seems to be a recent edition.