2013 Gibraltar Chess Festival Underway

The 2013 Tradwise Gibraltar Chess Festival is underway - the 11th edition of this popular event.

The main competition is a 10-round Swiss 'Masters' tournament with more than 240 players taking part, and featuring 22 players rated above 2600 Elo, and 8 in the 2700+ Elo club.

As usual, the first round of big Swiss events provides opportunities for upsets, and top seed Vassily Ivanchuk and second seed Gata Kamksy were both suprisingly held to draws by players rated more than 500 points below them.  The second round provided yet more shocks as Alexei Shirov was held to a draw and defending champion Nigel Short lost.

A small selection of games from the first two rounds are below.  The well organised official tournament website has full results, games, photos and videos.  There is also live coverage and commentary available. Rounds in the 'Masters' competition start at 15:00 (14:00 UTC) every day except the final round which starts at 11:00 (10:00 UTC).
.

Left to right: Tournament director GM Stuart Conquest, James Humphreys of the principal sponsor Tradewise, Brian Callaghan of the Caleta Hotel, Miss Gibraltar Jessica Baldochino and the Hon. Steven Linares, Minister for Sport, Culture, Heritage & Youth.

.

.

.

.

.

The top ranked players in the 2013 Gibraltar Masters

Games via TWIC.