Giants of the Gibraltar Masters
Be it amateurs, masters or the absolute bigwigs of the business, all have arrived at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar for the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. Scheduled to be played between January 23 and February 4, the Festival features five events for players of all strengths. The highlight obviously is the Master’s Open which is a star-studded field of 255 players includes a wide array of players from A-listers like Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Hou Yifan on one hand and a ton of norm-hungry youngsters on the other – the exact ingredients for some spectacular chess. Furthermore, there’s a total prize fund of £ 190,000 up for grabs with £ 23,000 for the first prize winner!
Photos, unless mentioned otherwise, are by John Saunders
Gibraltar Chess Festival: An Outlook
A super-tournament in the form of Tata Steel Chess is currently in progress at Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands. An open Swiss tournament can hardly be called as a super tournament. However, if you were to take the top ten seeds of the Gibraltar Masters 2017, it would be as strong as an elite round-robin event!
Starting rank
| No. | Name | FideID | FED | Rtg | |
| 1 | GM | Caruana Fabiano | 2020009 | USA | 2827 |
| 2 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | 623539 | FRA | 2796 |
| 3 | GM | Nakamura Hikaru | 2016192 | USA | 2785 |
| 4 | GM | Ivanchuk Vassily | 14100010 | UKR | 2752 |
| 5 | GM | Adams Michael | 400041 | ENG | 2751 |
| 6 | GM | Svidler Peter | 4102142 | RUS | 2748 |
| 7 | GM | Topalov Veselin | 2900084 | BUL | 2739 |
| 8 | GM | Yu Yangyi | 8603820 | CHN | 2738 |
| 9 | GM | Vitiugov Nikita | 4152956 | RUS | 2724 |
| 10 | GM | Gelfand Boris | 2805677 | ISR | 2721 |
The average rating of the top ten seeds is a whopping 2758! Let's meet some of the big names at the event:
Fabiano Caruana - 2827 [USA]
2016 US champion, Fabiano's peak live rating of 2851 is the 3rd highest in history. Equal first at the 2016 Isle of Man Open. Led the USA to gold in the Baku Olympiad. Fabiano's only previous visit to Gibraltar came in 2011.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - 2796 [FRA]
Now firmly established as one of the very best players in the world, Maxime clearly relishes the special atmosphere and challenge of playing on the Rock. In 2016 he lost the Masters play-off to Hikaru by the narrowest margin. Will 2017 be his year?
Hikaru Nakamura - 2785 [USA]
Three times (2008/2015/2016) Gibraltar winner, Hikaru has impressed greatly here, forcing his way to the top with drive and determination. For 2017 the field is tougher than ever - will he achieve a record-breaking 4th victory?
Vassily Ivanchuk - 2752 [Ukraine]
Winner of Gibraltar 2011 with record score of 9.0/10. This will be Vasil's 3rd visit to the Rock. World Blitz Champion in 2007 and 2008, and World Rapid Champion in 2016 among all his other achievements Vasil has won four Olympiad team gold medals.
Michael Adams - 2751 [England]
Five-times British Champion, scoring a spectacular 10.0/11 in 2016, and undefeated on top board for England in the Baku Olympiad, Mickey has been established amongst the world's super-elite for over 20 years. He has competed six times in Gibraltar, winning the tournament in 2010.
Peter Svidler - 2748 [Russia]
This will be Peter's fourth time on the Rock. His most successful visit was in 2009, when he tied 1st= with 8/10, then beat Vadim Milov in the play-off. Peter is 7 times Russian Champion. He won the 2011 World Cup, and was losing finalist (to Karjakin) in 2015. As is well-known, Peter loves cricket!
Veselin Topalov - 2739 [Bulgaria]
FIDE World Champion (2005), and former world no.1, Veselin returns to the Rock, having played in the Tradewise Masters once before, in 2015. In a career of many highs, one to point out is that Veselin was the third player in history to pass the 2800 barrier.
Boris Gelfand - 2721 [Israel]
World Championship finalist in 2012, Boris was only edged out by Vishy Anand in the rapid play-off, the score in the classical part of the match tied at 6-6. We are delighted that this legend of the game will be making his first visit to Gibraltar.
Boris Gelfand and Ju Wenjun gave a tandem Simul two days before the start of the event. The result was 18 wins and two draws for the grandmasters. One of the games was especially picturesque:
[Site "Gibraltar"]
[Date "2017.01.22"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Gelfand + Ju Wenjun"]
[Black "NN"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "E97"]
[Annotator "Sagar,Shah"]
[PlyCount "37"]
[EventDate "2017.01.22"]
[EventType "simul"]
[EventCountry "GGB"]
[SourceDate "2017.01.22"]
Nh5 9. d5 Ne7 10. c5 a6 11. Nd2 Nf4 12. Nc4 dxc5 13. Bxc5 b6 14. Ba3 b5 15. Na5
Re8 16. Bf3 Bd7 17. Bc5 Kh8 18. b4 Rc8 19. Nb7 {Smothering the queen! That's
pretty special!} 1-0
Hou Yifan - 2651 [China]
Women's World Champion. Two previous visits to Gibraltar, both times performing brilliantly. Her win against Judit Polgar here in 2012 made world-wide headlines, and she nearly won the whole event that year, only losing to Nigel Short in the final play-off.
The Indian Contingent
Although nobody from the Indian contingent stands out as a favourite for winning the tournament, we’ve got a strong league of participants. Some of them are listed below.
Surya Shekhar Ganguly
Rated 2657, GM Ganguly is the 19th seed in the tournament and is the highest rated participant from India. He has not only won the Indian National Championship six times, but has also gained a lot of experience working as Vishy Anand’s second in Vishy’s World Championship matches against Kramnik, Topalov and Gelfand. With that kind of an experience and the plethora of knowledge that he possesses, he is sure to give his opponents a tough time.
Abhijeet Gupta
Currently ranked 8th in the country, the 2645 rated GM Abhijeet Gupta is the 25th seed at the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters. Besides having won the World Junior title in 2008, Abhijeet has made the country proud by winning 23 medals for the country in several World, Asian and Commonwealth championships in various categories. This go-getter is definitely a force to be reckoned with.
Sethuraman SP
A member of the Bronze medal winning Indian team at the Tromso Olympiad and the National Premier Champion of 2014, Sethuraman is the 26th seed in the tournament. His current rating is 2637 and he is by no means an easy nut to crack.
All Indian participants at the event
| SNo | Name | Rtg | FED | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Pts. | Rk. | Group | |
| 19 | GM | Ganguly Surya Shekhar | 2657 | IND | 0,0 | 19 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 25 | GM | Gupta Abhijeet | 2645 | IND | 0,0 | 25 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 26 | GM | Sethuraman S.P. | 2637 | IND | 0,0 | 26 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 37 | GM | Lalith Babu M R | 2587 | IND | 0,0 | 37 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 40 | GM | Gopal G.N. | 2579 | IND | 0,0 | 40 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 61 | IM | Aryan Chopra | 2503 | IND | 0,0 | 61 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 72 | GM | Debashis Das | 2472 | IND | 0,0 | 72 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 91 | GM | Sundararajan Kidambi | 2420 | IND | 0,0 | 91 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 92 | IM | Karavade Eesha | 2418 | IND | 0,0 | 92 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 115 | WGM | Soumya Swaminathan | 2375 | IND | 0,0 | 115 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 124 | IM | Siva Mahadevan | 2356 | IND | 0,0 | 124 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 129 | Kulkarni Rakesh | 2344 | IND | 0,0 | 129 | Masters | |||||||||||
| 132 | FM | Rakesh Kumar Jena | 2335 | IND | 0,0 | 132 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 141 | IM | Saravanan V. | 2306 | IND | 0,0 | 141 | Masters | ||||||||||
| 155 | WIM | Pratyusha Bodda | 2247 | IND | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0,0 | 155 | Masters |
Check out the pairings for all the Indian players here
What’s more? The glamorous Indian WGM Tania Sachdev is at the rock of Gibraltar to host the Festival for us! Below is a video of her interviewing Vishy Anand in the 2016 edition!
With such a magnificent line up of players and a host like Tania, the Gibraltar Chess Festival is sure to be a spectacle. Stay tuned for our reports on the rounds.
Live games begin at 19.30 hours IST (15.00 hours local time)
About the author
Aditya Pai is an ardent chess fan, avid reader, and a film lover. He has been an advertising copywriter and is currently pursuing a Master's in English Literature at the University of Mumbai. He loves all things German and is learning the language. He has also written scripts for experimental films.