The VI El Llobregat Open Chess Tournament is a mosaic of cultures (Photo: David Llada)
With the strongest players in the tournament tightly packed at the top of the provisional standings, the six draws on the first ten boards augur a high-voltage middle stretch, where the favorites will have to take many risks in search of glory.
When the common amateur (like you, like me and like the vast majority of people who enjoy chess) sees that the first boards are full of draws, he usually thinks that the masters have taken a round of rest. The argument makes sense, since there is no person who can withstand the tension of a whole tournament without taking a break.
Here the physical and mental conditions of each competitor come into play, in addition to specific technical training. There are players who benefit from tight rankings, because they shine in fast game tiebreaks, just as there are those who, in such stressful situations, collapse, with the consequent overwhelming feeling of losing everything in a dramatic evening.
Imagine arriving from another country knowing that a good result in the Llobregat Open Chess Tournament is heard throughout the chess world. You have worked hard, you take care of every detail and you carry the nerves of hours squeezing micro-advantages or defending the indefensible. And the doubt arises: ‘Can I take a breather or will several hungry sharks pass me by?’. Because a stalemate without a fight can force you to fight every point against hyper-motivated opponents. “What if I fail, what if I lose a game and go under?”. That’s the ghost that haunts the pros, truncating very promising careers.
Today, the traditional ringing of the bell was performed by Nafisa Numinova. The head of the Uzbek delegation honored us with this gesture, starting the games.
Chilean grandmaster Cristóbal Henríquez provisionally leads the VI El Llobregat Open Chess Tournament (PHOTO: David Llada)
In sporting terms, Group A of the VI has brought us the day with the highest number of draws in the first ten boards so far in the tournament. Specifically, six games. And, in fact, among them are those corresponding to the first two boards. On the first board, the Chilean grandmaster Cristóbal Henríquez has drawn with his Spanish counterpart José Manuel López. White’s hundred Elo points seemed, a priori, that would swing the game in his favor, but Lopez has added another new round without losing, which allows him to continue his ambition to win the tournament, despite the fact that his rating is unfavorable with respect to his direct rivals.
The provisional ranking is led by GM Cristóbal Henríquez and… 7 more players, all with 3.5 points out of a possible 4. The list, after the Chilean, is as follows: Lopez, Bharath, Pranesh, Raja, Zhan, Deuer and Nazari. Up to 18 international titlists are just half a point behind them. Fire on the boards!
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In Group B, which is already in its fourth round, IM Dukaczewski (3 points) leads, followed by WFM Joana Ros (3), Daniel Santos (2) and FM Joaquín Noria (2).
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The young international master Joaquín Fiorito, from Argentina (PHOTO: David Llada).
For fans of the history of the sport, we will be unveiling in these chronicles the milestones achieved by the Llobregat Open Chess Tournament in the five previous editions:
- Best open held in Spain in the 2022 and 2023 editions, as certified by the Consejo Superior de Deportes and the FEDA (Spanish Chess Federation).
- We had more than one thousand participants; 50% international graduates.
- An average of 45 countries are represented at each edition.
- EL LLOBREGAT played: Gukesh, Narayanan, Abdusattorov, Mateusz Bartel, Erijaisi, Muraliu Karthikeyan, Puranik, Alvar Alonso, Maxime Lagarde, Kulkarni Bhakti, Mobina Alinasab, Rakshitta Ravi, Savitha Shri Baskar, Privanka Nutakki, Jaime Santos, Sara Khadem, Sabrina Vega, Lucas Van Foreest, Francisco Vallejo, Yangyi Yu, Ivan Cheparinov, Vladimir Fedoseev, Kiriil Alekseenko, Jaime Santos, Ponomariov, Amin Tabatabaei, Matthias Bluebaum, Vahap Sanal, Antoaneta Stefanova, Hans Niemann, Alain Pichot, Fernando Peralta… and so on up to more than a hundred grandmasters.
We would like to thank our sponsors: El Llobregat (magazine), Ajuntament de Sant Boi, Generalitat de Catalunya, Aigües de Barcelona and Diputació de Barcelona, without whose invaluable help an event of this magnitude would not be possible.
You can follow the games (from 4 p.m. onwards) daily on the web: https://www.elllobregat.com
