In the first round, Latvian Grandmaster Arturs Neikšāns took care of a pleasant surprise by playing the great master of Russia Alexei Saran in a beautiful style. Another 19 chess players won, so Neikšāns played among the leaders at the 10th table, meeting with the representative of England David Houvel. After a long fight at the top, the party ended in a draw late on Thursday night after 142 moves. After two rounds, the Latvian grandmaster with 1.5 points out of 2 takes a split 4-8. place in the overall standings of the tournament.
In his party, Normunds Miezis exactly repeated the moves made in the 1980 Tukmanov-Tāls party in up to 13 moves, which also ended in a draw. Normunds Miezis currently has 1 point out of 2 and is divided into 43-49. place in the overall tournament ranking.
Firoudja Alireza from France, one of the tournament leaders, won her second victory in a row, ending the day as the tournament leader with two other chess players who also managed to win the first two tournament tournaments – Alexander Predki of Russia and Ivan Saric of Croatia.
A total of 108 chess players take part in the open tournament and 50 in the women’s tournament, representing a total of 42 countries. The total prize pool for the tournament is $ 550,000, of which the first place winner in the open tournament will receive $ 70,000 and the women’s tournament winner $ 20,000. A total of 11 games will be played, the tournament will end on November 7.
All chess games can be followed live on https://grandswiss.fide.com/, the games start every day at 14.00 Latvian time. The only holiday during the tournament is scheduled for November 2. The tournament is held under strict security measures in the absence of spectators.
