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The 47th Guernsey Chess Festival begins on Sunday.
Action at the BWCI sponsored event continues until 21 October at St James, attracting Grand Masters from England and top players from all over Europe.
Guernsey has plenty of interest in the Open and Challenger Tournaments, while organisers have also announced both a public GM Simultaneous Exhibition which takes place on Friday (13th) evening and a Blitz Tournament that takes place on Saturday (14th) evening.
“After many months of hard work the Festival Organising Committee is very excited to be able to expand on last year’s festival with the inclusion of a GM Simultaneous Exhibition and the Blitz Tournament,” said Jonathan Hill, President, Guernsey Chess Federation & Club.
“We are also very happy to be returning to two, seven round classical chess tournaments and look forward to welcoming all the participants and spectators to the 47th BWCI Guernsey International Chess Festival.”
Arita Strade, Jamie Morgan, Matthew Kirk, Fred Hamperl and Peter Rowe will be representing Guernsey in the Open Tournament.
Entry information is available here.
The official opening is at 13:30 Sunday, with the first round getting underway at 14:00.
Play begins at 14:00 each day until Saturday 21 October, when the action commences at 9.30.
Featured players
Keith Arkell (Grand Master, England)
Arkell has been winning ten or more tournaments a year for 45 years.
His best recent results include jointly winning the Vienna Open with 7.5/9, ahead of 460 players including 25 GMs, in 2015.
He won the European Senior ( 50+) Championship in Porto in 2014, and at the end of that year secured a two-way share of first prize in the World Senior Championship, but lost the title on Bucholz.
In 2014 he was voted the English Chess Federation Player of the Year. In 2021 Arkell won the British online Championship. In 2022 he won individual Gold medals for his performances in helping England seniors (50+) win both the World and European Team Championships.
This will be his fifth appearance in the Guernsey International Chess Festival, his last in 2001.
Daniel Gormally (Grand Master, England)
In November 2006 Gormally was joint winner of the British Rapidplay Chess Championship. In 2015 he tied for second with David Howell and Nicholas Pert in the 102nd British Championship and eventually finished fourth on tiebreak.
He played for the English national team in the 2005 European Team Chess Championship and 2006 Chess Olympiad.
He has played the Festival once before, in 2001.
Harry Grieve (International Master, England)
Grieve will be making his third appearance at the Festivl.
He was the UK Chess Challenge Champion in 2017, British Online Rapid Champion 2020 and British Champion 2022 with unbeaten 7.5/9
He scored 4.5/7 in his first visit to Guernsey in 2014 and repeated that at his next appearance in 2018.
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