The Gibraltar International Chess Festival was a

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

tournament held annually at the Caleta Hotel in

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

. Its eleven days of competition usually run from late January to early February. The inaugural edition, then known as the '' Gibtelecom Gibraltar Chess Festival'', took place in 2003, when fifty-nine competitors took part, of whom 24 held the FIDE Grandmaster title. In 2011 the festival was renamed to the ''Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival'' when Tradewise Insurance Company Ltd became the new primary sponsor. Beginning in 2019 Tradewise no longer sponsored the tournament and the name was changed to the ''Gibraltar International Chess Festival''.

History

The main event, the Masters, was open to all, and was voted the best open event in the world by the Association of Chess Professionals in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Since 2011 an annual Gibraltar Junior International Chess Festival, also held at the Caleta Hotel, has been organised. It lasts five days and takes place in August and it comprises two events: under-16 and under-12. The Director of the Gibraltar International Chess Festival has been Stuart Conquest since 2011. In 2012, special stamps were issued by the Gibraltar Post Office to commemorate the tenth edition of the chess festival. In 2012 Chinese grandmaster

Hou Yifan Hou Yifan ( ; born 27 February 1994) is a Chinese chess Grandmaster (chess), grandmaster, three-time Women's World Chess Champion and professor at Peking University. She is the second highest Elo rating system, rated female player of all time.

, at the time ranked number two female chess player in the world, scored 8 points from a possible 10 in the Masters, tying for first place with

Nigel Short Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, columnist, coach and commentator who has been the FIDE Director for Chess Development since September 2022. Short earned the title of grandmaster at the ...

before losing a play-off match for the first prize. During this event Hou Yifan defeated

Judit Polgár Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, widely regarded as the Strong (chess), strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years ...

, number one rated female chess player in the world from 1989 to her retirement as a professional player in 2014.ChessBase News: Hou Yifan beats Judit Polgar in an historic encounter
/ref> The highest score achieved in a Gibraltar Masters event has been 9 points from a possible 10, by

Vasyl Ivanchuk Vasyl Mykhailovych Ivanchuk (; born March 18, 1969) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster, Grandmaster by FIDE in 1988. A leading chess player since 1988, Ivanchuk has been ranked at No. 2 on t ...

in 2011, with a performance rating of 2968. In 2017,

caused controversy by intentionally losing her final game of the tournament in 5 moves against Babu M.R. Lalith to protest the pairings. Hou had grown dissatisfied in recent years with playing in women-only tournaments, and had just dropped out of the

Women's World Chess Championship The Women's World Chess Championship is a chess match played to determine the Women's World Chess Champion. It has been administered by FIDE since its inception in 1927, unlike the absolute World Chess Championship, which only came under FIDE's ...

cycle. In Gibraltar, she faced 7 women in her 10 games when the men/women ratio in the tournament was 4:1. The incident was resolved as an extremely unlikely series of computer-generated pairings which nevertheless actually happened, and the result of the protest game stood.

List of winners

Since 2007, ties for first place in the Masters have been resolved by a tie-break. :

References

External links

Official website
{{Chess tournaments Invitational chess tournaments Festivals in Gibraltar 2003 in chess Recurring sporting events established in 2003 2003 establishments in Gibraltar International sports competitions hosted by Gibraltar Annual events in Gibraltar Chess in Gibraltar