Iceland, the land of geysers and... chess
For chess fans it's much more than just a small country: it's where Fischer and Spassky played their Match of the Century, and it's where Fischer is buried and where he spent the last years of his life. Iceland, the land of geysers, also has a strong, now annual open tournament in its capital Reykjavik and this year it ended in a four-way tie between Kryvoruchko, Marin and local heros Steingrimsson and Stefansson. Our ChessVibes Openings editor IM Robert Ris played, and sent us some nice pics..Fischer and Spassky's World Championship Match in 1972 generated a worldwide boom in chess, but it would be far from the truth to state that the Icelandic chess tradition started then and there. In fact, Iceland's history of chess activities date from the Middle Ages. The Reykjavik Chess Club was founded in 1900 and ever since have chess tournaments been organized in Iceland on a regular basis.Iceland's first grandmaster, Fri??rik ?ìlafsson, was Iceland's first real "celebrity", and every popular media followed his ventures with a great interest and the public flocked to watch, as he showed his magic in Reykjavik.The first big international tournament in Reykjavik was held in 1964 and won by Tal. Last year, the Chinese duo, Wang Hao and Wang Yue, along with the Icelandic champion Hannes Stef?°nsson, tied for 1st place.
The Reykjavik Open 2009 took place March 24th - April 1st in the Reykjavik Museum of Arts, in downtown Reykjavik. The tournament used to be organized bi-annually but with the co-operation of the Reykjavik Chess Academy, the Icelandic Chess Federation can now organize it every year.This year 110 players played in the nine-round Swiss. Ukrainian GM Yuriy Kryvoruchko (2604) grabbed the lead in round 5 in which he defeated Stuart Conquest, who was the only one in the field who had won all of his first four games. In round 8 (when boards 2-7 ended in wins for Black!) he was joined by Romanian GM Mihail Marin, who beat Yuri Shulman (USA).The two drew their last round game and so they allowed two Icelandic GMs to joined them in first place: Hannes Stefansson, beating Sebastien Maze (France) and Hedinn Steingrimsson who won against Abhijeet Gupta (India).[TABLE=687]
(Full final standings here.)Games selection
The playing hall in the Art Museum
The top boards on stage, with live coverage
Bj??rn Thorfinnsson, the main orgainzer and current president of the Icelandic Chess Federation
For the players an excursion to the geysers was organized. This one is called Strokkur geysir, which erupts very reliably every 5-10 minutes, hurling boiling water to heights of up to 20 metres (70ft) towards the sky...
...which looks like this!
The excursion included a visit to the Gullfoss waterfall, located in the canyon of Hv??t?° river in southwest Iceland and one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country. .
Obligatory for any chess player visiting Iceland: the grave of  Robert James Fischer
IM Robert Ris, who took all the other pictures, here just arrived in Akureyri,  a town in the northern part of Iceland where just before the Reykjavik Open the last three rounds of the Icelandic Team Championship were played.
Icelandic Champion Bolungarv??k, playing with big Ukrainian guns Areshchenko, Kryvoruchko en Oleksienko. On the left is the friendly team captain/sponsor Stefan Arnalds.
- Tournament website
- Games in PGN - unfortunately many not (yet) entered
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. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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