6th March, 2003

THE Hrokurinn Chess Festival, which took place at the Reykjavik Art
Museum in chess-mad Iceland, was dominated by Alexei Shirov who was back
to his brilliant best to win the category 15 tournament with an
impressive, unbeaten score of 7/9.

Shirov's only difficult game during the tournament came against top seed
Michael Adams, who uncharacteristically blundered badly in a better
position to leave his opponent with a gift of a mate in one!

The tournament turned out to be nightmare for the world number five, who
barely scrapped home with a par score after also losing to the venerable
Viktor Korchnoi. At 71, Korchnoi's performance of equal second with
European Champion Bartlomiej Macieja, especially amongst such a strong
field, is yet another unbelievable result for the veteran.

The new tournament is all part of the Hrokurinn Chess Club's ambitions
to revitalize the Icelandic chess scene. As part of their campaign, the
top Icelandic club joined forces recently with the country's top
publishing house, Edda, to also take chess into the classroom. Every
8-year-old in Iceland received a free gift of a chess book written by
Anatoly Karpov in conjunction with Walt Disney, entitled, "Disney's
Chess Guide". The eventual aim of the joint campaign is to see chess on
the curriculum for all 7 year olds in Iceland.

Final scores: 1 GM A Shirov (Spain) 7/9; 2-3 GM B Macieja (Poland), GM V
Korchnoi (Switzerland) 6; 4-5 GM I Sokolov (Holland), GM L McShane
(England) 5.5; 6 GM M Adams (England) 5; 7 GM E Bacrot (France) 3.5; 8
GM H Stefansson (Iceland) 3; 9 GM H Gretarsson (Iceland) 2.5; 10 IM S
Kristjansson (Iceland) 1.

S Kristjansson - A Shirov
Hrokurinn Festival, (5)
Scotch Game
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Bc5 5 Be3 Qf6 6 c3 b6 7 Bc4 Nge7 8
0-0 Bb7 9 Nb5 0-0-0 10 Bxc5 bxc5 11 Nd2 Ne5 12 f4 Nxc4 13 Nxc4 d5 14 Ne5
a6 15 Qg4+ Kb8 16 Na3 dxe4 17 Nd7+ Rxd7 18 Qxd7 Nd5 19 Nc4 Nxf4 20 Ne3
g5 21 Qg4 Rd8 22 Rad1 Rd3 23 Qf5 Qe7 24 Rfe1 f6 25 Ng4 c4 26 Ne3 Qd6 27
g3 Qb6 28 gxf4 Rxd1 29 Rxd1 Qxe3+ 30 Kf1 gxf4 31 Qxf6 Bc8 32 Qf8 Qf3+ 33
Ke1 e3 0-1

JOHN B HENDERSON