Giri, Andreikin, Jobava Favorites At Reykjavik Open

This year's Reykjavik Open will see three 2700 GMs in action: GMs Anish Giri, Dmitry Andreikin and Baadur Jobava. The annual open tournament in Iceland will be held April 19-27.

Reykjavik as seen from the Hallgrímskirkja.

After four years, GM Anish Giri returns to the Reykjavik, and again the Dutchman is the top seed. But his rating is 47 points higher than in 2013. Giri's wife IM Sopiko Guramishvili will also be playing and is the 57th seed.

Anish Giri, the top seed in Reykjavik.

Giri's main rivals are GMs Dmitry Andreikin and Baadur Jobava. Andreikin was also the second seed last year, behind Shakhriyar Mamedyarov—who will be playing the Gashimov Memorial instead. Jobava will be playing the tournament for the first time.

The field is again very strong, with some big names among the 2600+ group: GMs Alexei Shirov, Sergey Movsesian, Gawain Jones, Santosh Vidit Gujrathi, Gata Kamsky, and Abhijeet Gupta.

Alexei "Fire on Board" Shirov will be playing in Reykjavik. | Photo Vladimir Jagr.

There's also the 2015 winner GM Erwin l'Ami (together with his wife Alina), Women's World Championship semifinalist GM Harika Dronavalli, the record holder for most Chess Olympiad games, GM Eugenio Torre, the world's youngest IM Praggnanandhaa R. His sister WIM Ramesh Babu Vaishali will be playing as well.

2017 Reykjavik Open | Top Entries

The tournament will be held a month later than usual: April 19-27. These days work better for hotels, since March is an extremely busy month in Reykjavik. As a result, the weather will be better, with more sun and higher temperatures.

The venue, as always, is the beautiful Harpa Conference and Concert Hall along the harbor. It's still one of the most beautiful playing venues of any chess tournament in the world.

Other great aspects of the tournament remain as well: the now famous Reykjavík Open Chess Pub Quiz, the Golden Circle sightseeing tour that includes stops at Geysir and Bobby Fischer's final resting place and the new museum about the American legend. More information can be found on the tournament website.

Disclosure:  Chess.com  will again be producing the live show for the tournament with commentary by GM Simon Williams and WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni. Viewers can follow the live coverage on Chess.com/TV.

Correction: An earlier version of this piece mentioned that Alexei Shirov will be returning to Iceland for the first time since 1992. However, as Hrafn Jökulsson informed us, Shirov's last visit to Iceland was in 2003, when he won one of the strongest tournaments of the year (co-organized by Jökulsson) ahead of Ivan Sokolov, Luke McShane, Michael Adams, Etienne Bacrot, and Viktor Korchnoi.