53rd Torneo di Capodanno in Reggio Emilia

53rd Torneo di Capodanno in Reggio Emilia
Vassily Ivanchuk top seeded among ten players
Published by Chessdom

Reggio Emilia is a little town in the center of Italy. Little, but for many reasons very important. For at the end of 1700, here was born the Italian national flag, the “tricolore” – green , white, red.

Moreover, the famous writer and poet Ludovico Ariosto, the author of the epic novel “Orlando Furioso”, was born in Reggio Emilia in 1474. Perhaps someone could remember the intro: “Le donne, i cavallier, l’arme, gli amori, le cortesie, le audaci imprese io canto.”

At that time the city was property of Este family. Almost all members of this family where fond of chess, especially Isabella, duchess of Mantova, who is said to have hosted in her court many important chess players of the time, in particular from Spain. Leonardo da Vinci was also her guest.

We can say that the chess tradition in Reggio Emilia is older than 5 centuries!

From December 28th 2010 to January 6th 2011 the 53rd edition of the international chess tournament “Torneo di Capodanno” will be played in Reggio Emilia. Free day is on January 1st and opening ceremony takes place on December 28th, morning. Games starting daily from 14:30. The tournament will be played at hotel Astoria Mercure.

53rd event in succession is probably one of the records for a FIDE closed tournament, beside Hastings.

Players:

Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2754
Sergei Movsesian SVK 2723
David Navara CZE 2722
Vugar Gashimov AZE 2719
Alexander Morozevich RUS 2700
Fabiano Caruana ITA 2700
Francisco Vallejo Pons ESP 2697
Nigel Short ENG 2690
Alexander Onischuk USA 2688
Michele Godena ITA 2551

Chess fans can find the games and results on www.ippogrifoscacchi.it (for the complete list of winners and final tables of all 52 earlier editions click on “albo d’oro”).