The Boys are back in town (and girls!)
The Tradewise Gibaltar Chess Congress, the strongest Open ever, is underway and the excitement is building. The top seeds are truly inpressive:
| 1 | 4102142 | Svidler, Peter | g | RUS | 2749 | bio | |
| 2 | 13401319 | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | g | AZE | 2747 | bio | |
| 3 | 400041 | Adams, Michael | g | ENG | 2724 | bio | |
| 4 | 702293 | Almasi, Zoltan | g | HUN | 2717 | bio | |
| 5 | 12401137 | Le, Quang Liem | g | VIE | 2714 | bio | |
| 6 | 700070 | Polgar, Judit | g | HUN | 2710 | bio | |
| 7 | 2209390 | Shirov, Alexei | g | LAT | 2710 | bio | |
| 8 | 316385 | Laznicka, Viktor | g | CZE | 2704 | bio | |
| 9 | 2802007 | Sutovsky, Emil | g | ISR | 2703 | bio | |
| 10 | 310204 | Movsesian, Sergei | g | ARM | 2700 | bio | |
| 11 | 5004985 | Sasikiran, Krishnan | g | IND | 2700 | bio | |
| 12 | 623539 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | g | FRA | 2699 | bio | |
| 13 | 13300881 | Sargissian, Gabriel | g | ARM | 2683 | bio | |
| 14 | 13900048 | Bologan, Victor | g | MDA | 2680 | bio | |
| 15 | 400025 | Short, Nigel | g | ENG | 2677 | bio | |
| 16 | 11600454 | Fridman, Daniel | g | GER | 2660 | bio | |
| 17 | 3901211 | Iturrizaga, Eduardo | g | VEN | 2656 | bio | |
| 18 | 5010608 | Gupta, Abhijeet | g | IND | 2652 | bio | |
| 19 | 1204297 | Parligras, Mircea-Emilian | g | ROU | 2650 | bio | |
| 20 | 1207822 | LupThe firulescu, Constantin | g | ROU | 2648 |
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The first round saw plenty of fighting chess, helped by the rule forbidding draws before move 30. Mickey Adams came in with guns blazing and blew away his opponent.
Judit Polgar wasted no time dispatching her opponent.
Viktor the Terrible got off to a fine start.
Finally, a sparkling gem from Hikaru Nakamura's step-dad:
I arrived minutes before the first game after a brief hospital stay and tried to win a drawn position, losing late in the endgame.
