On tuesday the 8th i am going to spend the day at the London chess classic in Olympia.
Their are a number of tournaments, but the top one is the GM tournament "the classic".
Playing is Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Ni Hua, Nigel Short, Michael Adams, David Howell and Luke Mcshane.
If i manage to get any photos of the top players i will post them.
Link to the offical website click here
9 comments:
I envy you. I was once at the international tournament, GM Lev Psakhis, 2 time former USSR champion was the strongest player there. It was so great to see from 2 meters distance how he and others were playing.
Apart from the players in the "classic" tournament,their is an open tournament packed full of IM and GM players to watch,if you got bored of Carlsen or Short.
After some of the games had finished i was outside the commentary room talking to a friend about the games when Michael Adams joined in the conversation.
He is a really nice guy,who actually cares what the chess fan thinks.
Plus i got to have a few words with a chess legend,Viktor Korchnoi.He is guest of honor at the tournament.
I stayed to the end of the Short v Mcshane round 1 game,it started at 14.10 and finished at 19.50.Only a few people stayed to see the 160+ move game played out.
Even after his lose Nigel Short still talked to one or two of us at the end,and thats after 5 hours of play.
Sorry i cant tell the time!!!
The Short v Mcshane round 1 game finished 21.50 not 19.50.
Seeing those big shots live is always a different feeling then seeing them on photos or little movies.
Have seen many of the great players. Starting with Short vs Karpov kandidate match which Short won.
Now that was a great match,i only followed it on teletext and the chess mags,but to have been their.Karpov was still a great player then.
Those silly Brits spelled "program" wrong on that flyer.
No that's how they spell that word in England.
It a programme for an event like a football match the theate,not a tv program or computer program.
It is great you had this opportunity! Two years ago I was able to watch Mamedyarov, Movsesjan and Navara during a rapid tournament and it was also nice experience.
Hey, thanks for the reply, ChessX! My email doesn't do a prompt job of notifying me these days.
http://linuxguyonfics.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/inductive-reasoning
That would have been funny if you made a jackass remark to Kortchnoi like "Why didn't you kick Karpov in the nuts when you had the chance?"
How is his name pronounced, anyhow? I always say korch-noy.
That's awesome, you saw legends past and present. That would be great to talk to Adams, Short, and Kortchoi.
Man, what a cool atmosphere. Here, I think people are more like "Okay, we have our token local GM or two that play stateside", but it's something else to come across a super-GM. I would have to think that all GM's are probably pretty nimble-minded, quick thinkers.
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