Finally, today the Arctic Chess Challenge starts at Scandic Hotel. The mayor of Tromsø officially opens the tournament at 3.45pm, and the first round starts at 4 o’clock. The schedule is 9 rounds in as many days before the final round at 10-16 on August 8th. Tromsø Sjakklubb is proud that we have managed to get a tradition with an international chess tournament, and that it we now have such a challenging event for the fifth consecutive year.
The tournament has slowly grown from its beginnings in 2006 with 62 participants to this year’s super-tournament with 184 registered participants. Not only does the tournament have many players, but they also come from many different countries. There is currently not less than 40 countries represented at the registration list.
The first year we had a total of eight international players on the title starting line, while this year there are 80, of which 25 have the highest title – Grandmaster. Nearly 20 of the participants are women with titles, including last year’s winner, grandmaster Monica Socko of Poland.
This year’s tournament is the biggest and strongest chess tournament ever on Norwegian soil and it is nice considering that we want to be seen by the international chess world.
Tromsø is a candidate to host Chess Olympiad in 2014, and we believe it is important to implement such major chess event in a good and stylish manner.
A tournament brochure can be found here (pdf, 2 MB)
Tromsø 2014