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2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess
Festival Star Players Line-Up for the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival
As at all eight previous congresses, the main event will be the Gibraltar Masters tournament, which attracts leading professional grandmasters from all over the world and is now established as one of the major open tournaments on the professional circuit.
Once again the prize fund has been
increased to an overall £126,000, with a mouth-watering £17,500
going to the Masters winner and £10,000 going to the highest placed
woman player.
With rewards of this magnitude, it
is hardly surprising that some of the biggest names in chess beat a path to
Gibraltar. This year we have a true chess legend, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, taking part in the Masters. Vassily is currently ranked number nine in the world but even this high ranking doesn’t tell the full story of his prestige. He occupies a place of honour and popularity in chess comparable to the great Mikhail Tal and is acknowledged as one of the few players who could regularly rattle former world champion Garry Kasparov in one-to-one combat.
More big names are being added to the list all the time. They include Paco Vallejo Pons, the top native-born Spanish player who ran Michael Adams so close in 2010. We have another former Gibraltar Masters winner in the evergreen Bulgarian star Kiril Georgiev and the very strong Romanian grandmaster Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu.
The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival also offers superlative opportunities for other professional and amateur players to compete for big prizes and watch the stars in action. Another two bands of rating prizes, totalling £6,000, have been added to the Masters event for players rated between 2000 and 2200. The Challengers and Amateurs also provide very generous prizes, with £2,000 for winners of the two Challengers tournaments and £1,000 for winners of each of the Amateur tournaments.
As in previous years, the Masters event will feature a number of elite men and women players. As at 21 September 2010, the following have confirmed their participation in the tournament:
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The
Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival (formerly known as the Gibtelecom
International Chess Festival) takes place from Monday 24 January to Thursday
3 February 2011 at the 
Vassily
will have some tough opposition as the 2010 Gibraltar winner Michael
Adams will be back to defend his title. Michael’s Gibraltar
success proved a welcome fillip for his career and he has since piled on the
rating points and won the 2010 British Championship at a canter.
From
the USA we have 2701-rated Alexander Onischuk and the brilliant
prodigy Ray Robson. One instantly recognisable name in the
line-up will be legendary world championship finalist Viktor Korchnoi.
He’s not just guesting in Gibraltar but playing in the tournament, a couple
of months short of his 80th birthday - his longevity as a chessplayer is
truly remarkable.
With
its incomparable women’s prize fund, Gibraltar has naturally become a mecca
for the top women stars. The full list of invitees has yet to be
confirmed but In 2011 we are hoping to have five of the top six women
players on the world rating list.
They
are likely to include Humpy Koneru of India, whose peak rating has
only been bettered by Judit Polgar amongst women players, and the rapidly
improving Kosintseva sisters from Russia, as well as regular
Gibraltar competitors such as former women’s world champion Antoaneta
Stefanova, 2010 winner Natalia Zhukova, Pia Cramling,
Nana Dzagnidze, Harika Dronavalli and Viktorija Cmilyte.
More news of the women’s line-up very soon.
