Strong Rapid Tournament Takes Off in Riga
This weekend a (very) strong rapid tournament will be held in Riga, Latvia: the Latvian Railway Open. Besides the leading Latvian grandmasters (including co-organizer Alexey Shirov!), a number of big names from abroad will be present such as Vasilly Ivanchuk, Vladimir Malakhov, Sergei Zhigalko, Viktor Bologan and Loek van Wely.
The Latvian Railway Open takes place 28-30 March, 2014 at the Latvian Railway History Museum in Riga, Latvia. As one of the strongest open rapid tournaments of the world, the tournament is another example of the "chess in museums" trend!
According to Wikipedia the Latvian Railway Museum was established on August 30, 1994 and contains more than a thousand items, documents and photographs related to railway communications and signalling equipment, tools and instruments, uniforms and badges. It is located in the center of the Latvian capital.
The tournament will be held in three groups A, B and C. Tournament A is a 14-round Swiss with the time control 15 minutes for each player plus 6 seconds increment per move. The first round is on Friday, March 28th at 17.30 hours; the last round on Sunday the 30th at 15.00 hours. The total prize fund is 11,150 Euros with 1400 Euros going to the winner of th A tournament.
The current list of participants, as given on Chess-Results, has the following top 30:
| No. | Title | Name | FED | Rtg |
| 1 | GM | Malakhov Vladimir | RUS | 2777 |
| 2 | GM | Shirov Alexei | LAT | 2742 |
| 3 | GM | Ivanchuk Vassily | UKR | 2722 |
| 4 | GM | Zhigalko Sergei | BLR | 2704 |
| 5 | GM | Fedoseev Vladimir | RUS | 2681 |
| 6 | GM | Bologan Viktor | MDA | 2680 |
| 7 | GM | Van Wely Loek | NED | 2679 |
| 8 | GM | Lysyj Igor | RUS | 2675 |
| 9 | GM | Kovalenko Igor | LAT | 2653 |
| 10 | GM | Fridman Daniel | GER | 2649 |
| 11 | GM | Navara David | CZE | 2648 |
| 12 | GM | Azarov Sergei | BLR | 2646 |
| 13 | GM | Alekseev Evgeny | RUS | 2635 |
| 14 | GM | Aleksandrov Aleksej | BLR | 2616 |
| 15 | GM | Ehlvest Jaan | USA | 2612 |
| 16 | GM | Shimanov Aleksandr | RUS | 2582 |
| 17 | GM | Sumets Andrey | UKR | 2577 |
| 18 | GM | Shariyazdanov Andrey | RUS | 2570 |
| 19 | GM | Sulskis Sarunas | LTU | 2562 |
| 20 | GM | Sveshnikov Evgeny | LAT | 2554 |
| 21 | GM | Al-Modiahki Mohamad | QAT | 2547 |
| 22 | GM | Fedorov Alexei | BLR | 2547 |
| 23 | GM | Gleizerov Evgeny | RUS | 2545 |
| 24 | GM | Oparin Grigoriy | RUS | 2545 |
| 25 | GM | Miezis Normunds | LAT | 2544 |
| 26 | GM | Stupak Kirill | BLR | 2537 |
| 27 | GM | Ulibin Mikhail | RUS | 2515 |
| 28 | GM | Kulaots Kaido | EST | 2505 |
| 29 | IM | Krivonosov Oleg | LAT | 2490 |
| 30 | GM | Kovalev Vladislav | BLR | 2488 |
You can watch the games live here.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.
Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.
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