Beginner's Guide to Reykjavik Open

Hello! I’m Tamara, an amateur chess player, Twitch streamer, and traveler. Today, I’m bringing you with me to an informative overview of the Reykjavik Open 2024 chess tournament in Iceland that I had the pleasure of visiting. In this article, you’ll be able to learn a bit about how this tournament works, my personal experiences and takeaways, and hopefully get inspired to take your chess hobby to the next level by participating in a tournament! Let’s go.

About the tournament:

The Reykjavik Open is an annual chess tournament that takes place in the capital city of Iceland. In the last couple of years, it has become very popular with the Twitch streamer community. This year, some of the more prominent names at the scene were Anna Cramling, Dina Belenkaya, and Alexandra and Andrea Botez. 

The playing hall is Harpa, a concert hall and conference center in Reykjavík. The building is made out of a glass facade that shifts colors depending on the time of day or weather, as well as dancing in rainbows of hidden LED lights inside the glass.

How it all works:

On the first floor of Harpa, there is a spacious room that gets converted into a chess tournament each year. Hundreds of chess boards flood the room in a meticulously organized manner, and the tournament follows a Swiss system of 9 rounds, with accelerated pairings (which some players might or might not have complaints about). 

There are 90 minutes per player at the beginning of each game, and if the game reaches 40 moves, they both get an additional 30 minutes . On top of it, there is a 30-second increment for each move, so the games can run up to 6 hours in total!

There are two double round days, which this year began at 9h and 16h, and the remaining rounds were once a day at 15h.

Outside the playing hall, there is a front desk where players and visitors can leave their phones in safe storage. Electronic devices are strictly prohibited in the playing hall, and if any players break the rules of not having smart devices in their belongings (even if they’re off) during the game, they get penalized.

If you’re just watching, and not participating, taking photos of players is allowed for the first 10 minutes, but only with a proper camera, not a phone camera. After that, you can silently watch the games for as long as you'd like, as long as you don’t disturb them.

Unrated blitz event that took place after a classical game.

Personal experiences:

From March 15-21st, I had the pleasure of visiting Iceland alongside half a dozen Twitch streamers and around 400 chess enthusiasts from across the globe - and while I was there the form of a chess groupie (supporting a friend who's playing the tournament), and not playing in it, I felt right at home with the chess community.

There's something very special about the atmosphere - a collective passion for the game, where the players go head to head with palpable competitiveness (and quite a bit of ego), only to drop the act in the post-game analysis and share their joy of the game in a friendly manner. 

Well, that's not always true, sometimes a loss makes a kid cry or a grown man storm off, but those are exceptions to the rule. 

I would spend many hours walking around in the dead-silent room (apart from hearing someone cough now and then), observing games of my friends, streamers, or even random players, trying to visualize, calculate, or predict their next move. If this got tiring, I would make my way outside.

There is a seating area with a couple of dozen chairs where I would sit and watch the top 10-15 games on screens that are following the live boards.

The watching area.

Outside of the front desk area, a little down the hall, there is a commentary room which is usually occupied by a commentator and some observers - a room I never went into as I assumed it was in Icelandic and I couldn't understand a word of the commentary.

Right next door, there is an analysis room with boards set up for players to go to and analyze their games ‘post-op’. This is where a lot of lines are explored, players explain their thinking to one another, why they made certain moves, what they calculated, and what they just got lucky with. Usually, there is no animosity between players, everyone seems in good spirits in the analysis room.

Still, what I noticed from watching my chess friends is that the tournament can get difficult for the players. They not only have to play hour-long games every day but also prepare for the next one that same evening or the morning after. The double-round days are brutal, leaving little time to eat, let alone study for the next game. However, pure chess love (or competitiveness) keeps them going.

After the tournament was over, I had the pleasure of visiting the closing party, after having missed the opening one on the first day of the tournament. It was a packed room, awards were given to the top players, and there were drinks and bite-size desserts for everyone. The trophies were made out of lava rocks, giving the players a very unique conversation starter to display in their homes. 

The outcome: 

As the closing party started clearing out, some of the leftover roses from the award ceremony started making their way around the room and luckily, I got one too. A little while later, one of the arbiters came by for a chat and asked me what kind of award I won, as the roses were previously given to the best players, and while it was a perfect opportunity to make up some funny white lie, I remained honest and gave the answer I had also given to many other people that had asked about whether I’m playing, what my FIDE rating is…:

’I’m not playing in the tournament, I’m just visiting this year’. 

After having said that sentence tens of times, I was very determined to never have to say it again. 

Visiting the tournament was an incredible experience, but I will only come back as a player, never again as a chess tourist. 

So, the first thing I did upon returning was try to get a FIDE ID, look for the closest classical tournament nearby, and make a study plan to prepare for OTB. 

Thank you for reading this short article! I hope you found some gold about how chess tournaments work, and feel as inspired as I do to start playing chess over the board. I’ll make sure to write about my first classical chess adventure, until then - take care, stay safe, and have a great one!