The 2016 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is taking place from January 25th to February 4, at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar.
The traditional 10-round Swiss FIDE event s one of the strongest open chess tournaments in the world and its hefty prize fund attracted many top players. The first prize is £20,000, while the best female player will be awarded £15,000.
Top players: last year’s winner Nakamura, Hikaru USA 2787, Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA 2785, Anand, Viswanathan IND 2784, Harikrishna, Pentala IND 2755, Li, Chao CHN 2751, Yu, Yangyi CHN 2747, Jakovenko, Dmitry RUS 2732, Wojtaszek, Radoslaw POL 2727, Rapport, Richard HUN 2721, Fressinet, Laurent FRA 2700
Chessdom will provide daily coverage of the event and you can follow the Masters event with analysis here
The opening day
The 2016 Tradewise Chess Festival started its annual adventure when two of our participants, newly weds Radek Wojtaszek and Alina Kashlinskaya, offered simultaneous displays for early arrivals. The simuls began around 8pm on Sunday in the main restaurant. The games provied an ideal warm-up for Amateur and Challenger participants. Married only last July, Radek and Alina were delighted to take part in this traditional curtain raiser. Several players came along to see how they could get on against this special team.
Additionally, the Challengers and Amateur events are also underway and you can replay the games here
Vishy Anand’s first open in many years
Gibraltar Chess 2016 will be Vishy Anand’s first open in many years. Just like Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik who returned to Qatar Masters Open, now Vishy continues the trend. See why the ex-world champion Anand returns to open competitions in this video presented by “The Day’s Play” with host Tania Sachdev.
Opening ceremony
Stay tuned for the opening ceremony which takes place at 20:30 CET.
Live games start at 15:00 CET on Tuesday with live coverage here
Info: Official website/ Standings and statistics
Archive: Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2015/ Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2014
More about Gibraltar 2016
Rate of play: 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start.
In the event of a tie for first place, there shall be a speed play-off. If there are four or fewer players tied for first place, there will be a speed knock-out play-off for the first prize of £20,000.
If three players tie for first place, the player with the highest performance rating will be seeded directly into the Final of the Play-Off; the other two players will contest the Semi-Final.
If more than four players tie for first place, the four players with the highest performance ratings shall qualify for the play-off to decide the first prize.
Women’s Awards: If there is a tie for the top women’s prize, the tie is resolved in favour of the woman with the highest performance rating, who will receive the prize of £15,000. All other prizes will not be subject to a tiebreak and prize money other than the first prize will be divided equally amongst the players.
Masters Regulations: Important! Draws by mutual agreement in fewer than 30 moves are not allowed. There must be no pre-arranged or tacit agreements to draw games of any length, by repetition or otherwise.
Full list of participants
Full list of participants in the Tradewise Masters
| No | Name | Fed | Rtg |
| 1 | Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2787 |
| 2 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | FRA | 2785 |
| 3 | Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2784 |
| 4 | Harikrishna, Pentala | IND | 2755 |
| 5 | Li, Chao b | CHN | 2751 |
| 6 | Yu, Yangyi | CHN | 2747 |
| 7 | Jakovenko, Dmitry | RUS | 2732 |
| 8 | Wojtaszek, Radoslaw | POL | 2727 |
| 9 | Rapport, Richard | HUN | 2721 |
| 10 | Fressinet, Laurent | FRA | 2700 |
| 11 | Bacrot, Etienne | FRA | 2697 |
| 12 | Ni, Hua | CHN | 2697 |
| 13 | Naiditsch, Arkadij | AZE | 2696 |
| 14 | Ragger, Markus | AUT | 2689 |
| 15 | Howell, David W L | ENG | 2685 |
| 16 | Short, Nigel D | ENG | 2684 |
| 17 | Bruzon Batista, Lazaro | CUB | 2666 |
| 18 | Kamsky, Gata | USA | 2665 |
| 19 | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | POL | 2660 |
| 20 | Ganguly, Surya Shekhar | IND | 2660 |
| 21 | Sutovsky, Emil | ISR | 2647 |
| 22 | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | IND | 2642 |
| 23 | Anton Guijarro, David | ESP | 2639 |
| 24 | Sethuraman, S.P. | IND | 2639 |
| 25 | Grandelius, Nils | SWE | 2635 |
| 26 | Salem, A.R. Saleh | UAE | 2627 |
| 27 | Jones, Gawain C B | ENG | 2625 |
| 28 | Iturrizaga Bonelli, Eduardo | VEN | 2624 |
| 29 | Edouard, Romain | FRA | 2617 |
| 30 | Erdos, Viktor | HUN | 2613 |
| 31 | Gupta, Abhijeet | IND | 2613 |
| 32 | Lenic, Luka | SLO | 2611 |
| 33 | Bachmann, Axel | PAR | 2610 |
| 34 | Maze, Sebastien | FRA | 2591 |
| 35 | Sandipan, Chanda | IND | 2583 |
| 36 | Tregubov, Pavel V. | RUS | 2582 |
| 37 | Dzagnidze, Nana | GEO | 2581 |
| 38 | Grigoriants, Sergey | RUS | 2580 |
| 39 | Perez Ponsa, Federico | ARG | 2577 |
| 40 | Vazquez Igarza, Renier | ESP | 2572 |
| 41 | Donchenko, Alexander | GER | 2570 |
| 42 | Oparin, Grigoriy | RUS | 2565 |
| 43 | Tari, Aryan | NOR | 2556 |
| 44 | Felgaer, Ruben | ARG | 2555 |
| 45 | Muzychuk, Mariya | UKR | 2554 |
| 46 | Lalith Babu M R | IND | 2553 |
| 47 | Kosteniuk, Alexandra | RUS | 2550 |
| 48 | Arribas Lopez, Angel | ESP | 2546 |
| 49 | Muzychuk, Anna | UKR | 2537 |
| 50 | Demuth, Adrien | FRA | 2535 |
| 51 | Handke, Florian | GER | 2533 |
| 52 | AL-Sayed, Mohammed | QAT | 2530 |
| 53 | Gopal G.N. | IND | 2525 |
| 54 | Cramling, Pia | SWE | 2523 |
| 55 | Spraggett, Kevin | CAN | 2522 |
| 56 | Vishnu Prasanna. V | IND | 2518 |
| 57 | Pichot, Alan | ARG | 2517 |
| 58 | Gledura, Benjamin | HUN | 2515 |
| 59 | Libiszewski, Fabien | FRA | 2515 |
| 60 | Stefanova, Antoaneta | BUL | 2515 |
| 61 | Harika, Dronavalli | IND | 2511 |
| 62 | Sundararajan, Kidambi | IND | 2508 |
| 63 | Zhao, Xue | CHN | 2506 |
| 64 | Tan, Zhongyi | CHN | 2504 |
| 65 | Goryachkina, Aleksandra | RUS | 2502 |
| 66 | Khotenashvili, Bela | GEO | 2502 |
| 67 | Aravindh, Chithambaram VR. | IND | 2500 |
| 68 | Fodor, Tamas Jr. | HUN | 2500 |
| 69 | Gunina, Valentina | RUS | 2496 |
| 70 | Blomqvist, Erik | SWE | 2492 |
| 71 | Zhukova, Natalia | UKR | 2484 |
| 72 | Nakar, Eylon | ISR | 2479 |
| 73 | Tarjan, James E | USA | 2478 |
| 74 | Ly, Moulthun | AUS | 2474 |
| 75 | Basso, Pier Luigi | ITA | 2466 |
| 76 | Kashlinskaya, Alina | RUS | 2462 |
| 77 | Carlstedt, Jonathan | GER | 2461 |
| 78 | Prasanna Raghuram Rao | IND | 2460 |
| 79 | Galyas, Miklos | HUN | 2459 |
| 80 | Krush, Irina | USA | 2458 |
| 81 | Pogonina, Natalija | RUS | 2454 |
| 82 | Melia, Salome | GEO | 2452 |
| 83 | Tan, Justin | AUS | 2446 |
| 84 | Kelires, Andreas | CYP | 2444 |
| 85 | Salomon, Johan | NOR | 2444 |
| 86 | Shytaj, Luca | ITA | 2443 |
| 87 | Stark, Lars | GER | 2440 |
| 88 | Kollars, Dmitrij | GER | 2436 |
| 89 | Akesson, Ralf | SWE | 2435 |
| 90 | Tischbierek, Raj | GER | 2433 |
| 91 | Carlsson, Pontus | SWE | 2430 |
| 92 | Almagro Llamas, Pablo | ESP | 2429 |
| 93 | Padmini, Rout | IND | 2427 |
| 94 | Santos Ruiz, Miguel | ESP | 2427 |
| 95 | Neef, Maximilian | GER | 2423 |
| 96 | Santiago, Yago De Moura | BRA | 2422 |
| 97 | Esserman, Marc | USA | 2419 |
| 98 | Ben Artzi, Ido | ISR | 2418 |
| 99 | Holm, Kristian Stuvik | NOR | 2417 |
| 100 | Docx, Stefan | BEL | 2416 |
| 101 | Csonka, Balazs | HUN | 2415 |
| 102 | Nagy, Gabor | HUN | 2413 |
| 103 | Rydl, Jiri | CZE | 2412 |
| 104 | Satyapragyan, S | IND | 2410 |
| 105 | Vogt, Lothar | GER | 2409 |
| 106 | Martinez Martin, David | ESP | 2407 |
| 107 | Codenotti, Marco | ITA | 2406 |
| 108 | Kohlweyer, Bernd | GER | 2404 |
| 109 | Houska, Jovanka | ENG | 2402 |
| 110 | Kuipers, Stefan | NED | 2399 |
| 111 | Gaponenko, Inna | UKR | 2393 |
| 112 | Khademalsharieh, Sarasadat | IRI | 2392 |
| 113 | Solomon, Kenny | RSA | 2390 |
| 114 | Hauge, Lars Oskar | NOR | 2388 |
| 115 | Anurag, Mhamal | IND | 2387 |
| 116 | Aaberg, Anton | SWE | 2382 |
| 117 | Shvayger, Yuliya | ISR | 2381 |
| 118 | Galinsky, Timofey | UKR | 2379 |
| 119 | Gulamali, Kazim | USA | 2379 |
| 120 | Bellon Lopez, Juan Manuel | ESP | 2376 |
| 121 | Christiansen, Johan-Sebastian | NOR | 2374 |
| 122 | Paehtz, Thomas | GER | 2372 |
| 123 | Herman, Matthew J | USA | 2370 |
| 124 | Siva Mahadevan | IND | 2370 |
| 125 | Bitensky, Igor | ISR | 2362 |
| 126 | Lazarne Vajda, Szidonia | HUN | 2359 |
| 127 | Vuilleumier, Alexandre | SUI | 2356 |
| 128 | Shachar, Ehud | ISR | 2353 |
| 129 | Vojinovic, Jovana | SRB | 2352 |
| 130 | Wemmers, Xander | NED | 2352 |
| 131 | Bellin, Robert | ENG | 2350 |
| 132 | Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan | SCO | 2346 |
| 133 | Tate, Alan | SCO | 2345 |
| 134 | Gara, Anita | HUN | 2339 |
| 135 | Foisor, Cristina-Adela | ROU | 2338 |
| 136 | Pourkashiyan, Atousa | IRI | 2338 |
| 137 | Mihajlov, Sebastian | NOR | 2335 |
| 138 | Mannion, Stephen R | SCO | 2334 |
| 139 | Zwahr, Paul | GER | 2333 |
| 140 | Perez Garcia, Rodney | CUB | 2332 |
| 141 | Lombaers, Peter | NED | 2328 |
| 142 | Kharous, Ernest | RUS | 2314 |
| 143 | De Haan, Eric | NED | 2313 |
| 144 | Ripari, Marcelo | ARG | 2310 |
| 145 | Papp, Petra | HUN | 2308 |
| 146 | Bach, Matthias | GER | 2301 |
| 147 | Goriatchkin, Jouri | RUS | 2300 |
| 148 | Bergstrom, Rolf | SWE | 2297 |
| 149 | Plotkin, Victor | CAN | 2291 |
| 150 | Pratyusha, Bodda | IND | 2278 |
| 151 | Piasetski, Leon | CAN | 2277 |
| 152 | Watson, John L | USA | 2277 |
| 153 | Perez Garcia, Alejandro | ESP | 2273 |
| 154 | Vea, Odin Blikra | NOR | 2271 |
| 155 | Henderson de La Fuente, Lance | ESP | 2270 |
| 156 | Sanchez Jerez, Emilio Miguel | ESP | 2265 |
| 157 | Nava Pereda, Carlos | ESP | 2262 |
| 158 | Gavilan Diaz, Mario | ESP | 2261 |
| 159 | Cordes, Hans-Joerg, Dr. | GER | 2257 |
| 160 | Weisbuch, Udi | ISR | 2254 |
| 161 | Menna Barreto, Felipe Kubiaki | BRA | 2247 |
| 162 | Mohota, Nisha | IND | 2245 |
| 163 | Hommerson, Paul | NED | 2240 |
| 164 | Heinemann, Josefine | GER | 2233 |
| 165 | Saber, Yasser | MAR | 2230 |
| 166 | House, Glenn L | ENG | 2226 |
| 167 | Fiala, Vaclav | CZE | 2217 |
| 168 | Midonet, Matthieu | FRA | 2211 |
| 169 | Nebolsina, Vera | RUS | 2208 |
| 170 | Walton, Alan J | ENG | 2206 |
| 171 | Verneuil, Pascal | FRA | 2205 |
| 172 | Pinho, Paulo | POR | 2197 |
| 173 | Haussernot, Cecile | FRA | 2190 |
| 174 | Guthrie, David | NZL | 2187 |
| 175 | Baert, Andy | BEL | 2184 |
| 176 | Amgalanbaatar, Ravdanlkhumbuu | MGL | 2178 |
| 177 | Semprun Martinez, Fernando | ESP | 2178 |
| 178 | Byron, Alan M | ENG | 2175 |
| 179 | Tscharotschkin, Michael | GER | 2169 |
| 180 | Hill, Alistair | ENG | 2167 |
| 181 | Ajele, Rotimi | NGR | 2163 |
| 182 | Ranaivoharisoa, Alain | MAD | 2160 |
| 183 | Blodig, Reinhard | GER | 2158 |
| 184 | Campbell, Charles | NGR | 2157 |
| 185 | Dougherty, Michael | CAN | 2149 |
| 186 | Vanheirzeele, Daniel | BEL | 2149 |
| 187 | Lobersli, Henrik Oie | NOR | 2146 |
| 188 | Spence, David J | ENG | 2140 |
| 189 | Seyfried, Claus | GER | 2137 |
| 190 | Becham, Khalid | MAR | 2135 |
| 191 | Veltkamp, Gerben | NED | 2135 |
| 192 | Kalthoff, Peter | GER | 2132 |
| 193 | Osuna Vega, Enrique | ESP | 2127 |
| 194 | Dolzhikova, Olga | NOR | 2126 |
| 195 | Amos, Frank | GER | 2118 |
| 196 | Barrenechea Bahamonde, G | ESP | 2116 |
| 197 | Burrows, Martin P | ENG | 2115 |
| 198 | Batchuluun, Ariunbold | MGL | 2109 |
| 199 | Omoifo, Osemekhian I | USA | 2106 |
| 200 | Nordquelle, Daniel | NOR | 2102 |
| 201 | Weeramantry, Sunil | SRI | 2099 |
| 202 | Pakosta, Miroslav | CZE | 2097 |
| 203 | Compton, Alistair | NZL | 2094 |
| 204 | Havik, Victor | NOR | 2092 |
| 205 | Pabalan, Rocky | PHI | 2089 |
| 206 | De Rosa, Mariagrazia | ITA | 2088 |
| 207 | Hagesather, Arne | NOR | 2086 |
| 208 | Carlsten, Peter | SWE | 2074 |
| 209 | Kozarcanin, Sead | CRO | 2073 |
| 210 | Biegel, Thomas | GER | 2069 |
| 211 | Dasaolu, Rotimi | NGR | 2060 |
| 212 | Myall, Ivan J | ENG | 2048 |
| 213 | Vilarnovo Caamano, Jose | ESP | 2043 |
| 214 | Berrocal Ruiz, Valentin | ESP | 2040 |
| 215 | Suez-Panama, Gilles | FRA | 2032 |
| 216 | Moradi, Kimia | NOR | 2024 |
| 217 | Lindqvist, Roland | SWE | 2018 |
| 218 | Korning, Peter | SWE | 2015 |
| 219 | Odeh, Kenneth | NGR | 2014 |
| 220 | Henrichsen, Jens | DEN | 2012 |
| 221 | Harding, Tim D | IRL | 2006 |
| 222 | Burke, Mitchell R | ENG | 2002 |
| 223 | Goncalves, Jose Antonio S | BRA | 1984 |
| 224 | Eagleton, Greg T | ENG | 1981 |
| 225 | Darnell, Anton | SWE | 1979 |
| 226 | Skutta, Bernd, Dr. | GER | 1966 |
| 227 | Zachariassen, John | DEN | 1958 |
| 228 | George, Lolomari | NGR | 1937 |
| 229 | Lafortune, Emerick | FRA | 1923 |
| 230 | Boron, Anthony | CAN | 1915 |
| 231 | Slinger, Tony J | ENG | 1915 |
| 232 | Bajer, Renato | GER | 1890 |
| 233 | Gravett, Alan D | GIB | 1884 |
| 234 | Wilson, Matthew R | ENG | 1873 |
| 235 | Sajjadi, Kimiya | NOR | 1839 |
| 236 | Winter, Kevin | ENG | 1825 |
| 237 | Christophe-hayot, Romain | FRA | 1824 |
| 238 | Schimmer, Michael | GER | 1782 |
| 239 | Chidi, Lovinia Sylvia | GER | 1780 |
| 240 | Tarr, Steve F | ENG | 1779 |
| 241 | Kristinsson, Magnus | ISL | 1776 |
| 242 | Magnusdottir, Veronika | ISL | 1762 |
| 243 | Savage, Neil | RSA | 1689 |
| 244 | Joachim, Rodny | FRA | 1659 |
| 245 | Beadle, John R | ENG | 1560 |
| 246 | Sedillo, Edward R | USA |
