This year’s PokerStars Isle of Man International Chess Tournament is not just the strongest open tournament ever to be held in the British Isles, but also one of the strongest worldwide. The tournament features two Top 20 and eleven Top 100 players, as well as numerous top women and junior players.
After some last-minute changes to the participants’ list, 102 players from 27 countries found their way to Douglas’ beautiful Villa Marina in the end. Out of these, a staggering 36 are GMs, with 16 of them being rated over 2600. Other titled players include 2 WGMs, 26 IMs, 2 WIMs, 14 FMs, 1 WFM and 1 CM. With only 20 untitled players, this tournament offers all non-GMs a perfect norm-scoring opportunity.
A big poster advertising the tournament in the main hall of the Villa Marina
While in most open tournaments the favourites get a relatively easy game in round 1, there was no such thing as a warm-up round at the Villa Marina yesterday. In fact, we even had a GM clash on board 1, where PokerStars Supernova Elite (the poker equivalent of a super grandmaster) Radoslaw Jedynak from Poland took on the tournament’s top seed Michael Adams with the black pieces.
Chief Minister Allan Bell making the ceremonial first move on board 1
Once the ceremonial first move had been made by the Isle of Man Chief Minister Allan Bell, Adams displayed his usual fine endgame technique to win one of the quickest games of the round. In an ironic twist, board 2 was the last game of the day to finish, as Harikrishna took advantage of a last-minute blunder by his opponent to convert a drawn ending into a full point. On board 3, which was the penultimate game to finish, Peter Roberson also put up heroic resistance against David Howell, but England’s number two showed both patience and precision to convert his extra pawn.
Working late: boards 2 and 3 were the last to finish
The only real upset of the round happened on board 26, where FM Lyell (2285) overcame IM Illingworth (2517) from Australia. It is also worth mentioning that five players held their higher rated opponents to draws: FM Jackson (against GM Fridman), FM Klein (against GM Boruchovsky), IM Kolbus (against GM Harika), WIM Efroimski (against GM Vaisser) and WFM Zahn (against IM Greet).
Today’s round 2 already features some big clashes on the top boards, notably on board 1, where Mickey Adams will be facing another England legend in the person of Keith Arkell. Board 2 is an all-Indian affair as Vishnu takes on Harikrisha, while on board 3 we have another English clash between Gormally and Howell.
The games start at 1.30pm local time and like last year, you can follow the first 30 boards live on our website. All the pictures from round 1 are in the photo gallery.
Fiona Steil-Antoni
