Neckar Open

View of the Deizisau parish hall, one of the venues for the Neckar Open

The Neckar Open was an international open chess tournament that was held every year over Easter from 1997 to 2015 in Deizisau ( Esslingen district ) in nine rounds according to the Swiss system . At that time it was considered the largest chess tournament in Germany.

Overview

Tournament director Sven Noppes

Last round of the Neckar Open 2000: 14-year-old Bu Xiangzhi from the People's Republic of China, then the youngest chess grandmaster, is fighting for the tournament victory against Rafael Vaganian from Armenia.

Arkadij Naiditsch 2009 in his first of seven participations in the Neckar Open. In 2011 he won 9 games with a record result of 8.5 points.

The 2011 and 2003 winners: Arkadij Naiditsch and David Baramidze .

The future world-class player Anish Giri finished 60th in Deizisau at the age of 14 in 2009.

Also, Li Chao of China succeeded in 2015 in the last edition of the tournament in the victory with 8.5 points.

The Neckar Open was organized nineteen times by Schachfreunde Deizisau , a smaller chess club in the Stuttgart region , under the direction of its chairman Sven Noppes . Although nine games were played within five days with a classic cooling-off period, which resulted in a very strenuous tournament schedule for the participants, the Neckar Open developed over the years into one of the largest chess tournaments in Europe. The record level of 764 participants was reached in 2012. Because of the high number of participants from the field in 1999 after the was scoring numbers in three separate tournaments (A, B and C tournament) divided.

The organizer has been able to commit players from the extended world elite to participate several times: In 1999, Zhu Chen , who was the women's world champion from 2001 to 2004 , took 6th place in Deizisau. Rustam Kasimjanov won the Neckar Open in 2004, a few months before he became a FIDE world champion. Other well-known participating grandmasters were (in brackets the year of participation in the Neckar Open and the placement achieved): Joel Benjamin (1999: 3rd place), Larry Christiansen (2000: 15th place), Rafael Vaganian (2000: 6th place ), Gyula Sax (2002: 17th place), Lewon Aronjan (2002: 5th place), Anish Giri (2009: 60th place), Arkadij Naiditsch (2009–2015; best result 2011: 1st place), Étienne Bacrot (2011–2015; best result 2013: 2nd place), Richárd Rapport (2008, 2012–2014; best result 2013: 1st place) and Li Chao (2015: 1st place).

Both the national press such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine and the Süddeutsche Zeitung as well as the SWR television reported regularly on the tournament. The Grenke Chess Open , which will be held for the first time in Karlsruhe in 2016 , is named as the successor tournament on the Neckar Open website .

winner

year	Tournament winner (since 1999 of the A tournament)
1997	Mychajlo Holubiev
1998	Mikhail Ivanov
1999	Erik van den Doel
2000	Bu Xiangzhi
2001	Konstantin Landa
2002	Vladimir Yepishin
2003	David Baramidze
2004	Rustam Kasimjanov
2005	Mikhail Gurevich
2006	Duško Pavasovič
2007	Bu Xiangzhi
2008	Falko Bindrich
2009	Fernando Peralta
2010	Pablo Lafuente
2011	Arkadij Naiditsch
2012	Andrei Istrățescu
2013	Richárd Rapport
2014	Viktor Láznička
2015	Li Chao

Web links

Commons : Neckar-Open  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the Neckar-Open with detailed reports (also on previous years)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Journal of Schach , 2005, Issue 5, p. 48
2. ↑ Schach , 2006, No. 5, p. 59
3. ↑ Schach , 2012, issue 5
4. ↑ Schach-Magazin 64 , 1997–1999, each issue 9
5. ↑ Schach , 2000–2010, each issue 5
6. ↑ Schach , 2011, No. 6
7. ↑ Schach , 2012–2015, each issue 5