Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Congress 2011 - Interview with GM Short plus great video

Chess blog for latest news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hello everyone,

Here is a nice interview with the creative Grandmaster Nigel Short about the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Open.

The first title holder of the Gibraltar international chess festival in 2003, former British Champion, GM Nigel Short, is once again back on the Rock participating in the festival for the fourth time. Nigel also won in 2004, and on his third visit came a close second.

After a break of a number of years he has returned to compete in the Tradewise Chess Festival 2011... as he puts it for the "good weather" but also because he believes that from modest beginnings the festival has now become the foremost open tournament in the world.

Find great photos of chess wizard

Grandmaster Nigel Short at www.chesspics.com

"The Gibraltar Festival has grown tremendously. It has never been a weak tournament even in the first year. From modest beginnings, and from the first year, great efforts were made to bring some top players. It is now the foremost open tournament in the world. Everybody agrees Gibraltar is the best opens around," he says.

Nigel, who like many players around the world has closely followed the growth of the festival, which he acknowledges has gone from strength to strength, says: "It has built up slowly, and there continues to be a steady increase in numbers with very strong players."

Is he surprised with the success of the Festival in Gibraltar?

"No. I am not surprised with its success because it has good organisation, and the people behind the event are very enthusiastic about it. That combination coupled with good sponsors, providing you can continue to improve on the event, then it all comes together to be what it is today, a very impressive event."

Is he back to win back the Gibraltar title again?

Nigel, who says he is of course out to win the 2011 Gibraltar Master, and even though at the time of releasing this press release was leading the board, believes he has, "a very long shot for winning this tournament, and I say that as someone who has, in my three years here, won it twice, and come second, once. The tournament has improved and there are some really top class players, and there are a lot of them."

A nice video from the tournament.



The musician in the video is Maria Yarur from Chile, who is playing in the Amateur competition.


The top-20 standings after Round 6

1	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	UKR	2764	5.5	2969
2	GM	Short Nigel D	ENG	2658	5.0	2831
3	GM	Fridman Daniel	GER	2655	5.0	2822
4	GM	Mikhalevski Victor	ISR	2579	5.0	2622
5	GM	Sengupta Deep	IND	2530	4.5	2758
6	GM	Adams Michael	ENG	2723	4.5	2741
7	GM	Kulaots Kaido	EST	2577	4.5	2714
8	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	GEO	2550	4.5	2712
9	GM	Roiz Michael	ISR	2649	4.5	2702
10	IM	Kosintseva Nadezhda	RUS	2552	4.5	2690
11	GM	Caruana Fabiano	ITA	2721	4.5	2674
12	GM	Gopal Geetha Narayanan	IND	2597	4.5	2667
13	GM	Kacheishvili Giorgi	GEO	2585	4.5	2650
14	GM	Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter	ROU	2678	4.5	2636
15	GM	Ikonnikov Vyacheslav	RUS	2580	4.5	2623
16	GM	Edouard Romain	FRA	2634	4.5	2589
17	IM	Bellaiche Anthony	FRA	2458	4.5	2549
18	IM	Melia Salome	GEO	2449	4.5	2521
19	GM	Fier Alexandr	BRA	2571	4.5	2461
20		Szuper Paul	USA	2174	4.5	2445

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www.chessblog.com

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