Four mental sport aces will play in Dos Hermanas (Seville), one of the most attractive rapid chess tournaments of the year. They are former world champion (and number 3 in the list of best players) Veselin Topalov; the Leonardo da Vinci of chess, Alexei Shirov; the best women player of all time, Judit Polgar, and former world under 18 champion Paco Vallejo.
All of them are nonconformist gladiators, for which chess and risk are synonyms. That is why their play is specially appreciated by organizers and chess fans.
This high combativeness factor is one of the main reasons why the Dos Hermanas Sports Council (organizer of the event with the support of the Seville Deputation and the Junta de Andalusia) invite precisely these players, to an event that will bring back the best players in the world to their city.
More than a decade has gone by since Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and the rest of the best players of the 90’s have played five memorable tournaments (1993-1997) that will go down in history as some of the best events during each of these years.
Nonetheless, the Dos Hermanas Council has always considered that top-level sport must go alongside scholastic sport, even more so in chess, whose pedagogic and social virtues are have been demonstrated only two well.
With this spirit the 1989 International Tournament was born, with several parallel events for chess fans, and specially focussed towards children. These efforts became a reality in 1997 when the “Chess House” opened.
This would explain the change in format and philosophy from 1999 to 2005: biennial tournaments, mixing professionals with amateurs, always with an important social complement.
This conception of chess as a form of culture also explains the birth of another chess competition which has given the city international fame: the Internet tournament ‘Ciudad de Dos Hermanas’, the ninth edition of which is currently being held on the Internet Chess Club platform (www.doshermanas.net).
But chess can also be a vibrant show, and Dos Hermanas is betting on that: semi-finals (April 18th and 19th) and final (April 20th), with pairings that will be decided on Thursday the 17th.
Each match will be played to the length of four games with 20 minutes for each player. In these rapid games, an action-packed rhythm of 2 seconds per move can be reached. And although the games played in the Municipal Theatre (all three days at 4.30 pm) will be very fast, the spectators will understand instantly everything that is happening thanks to the headphone commentary by Grand Master Miguel Illescas, seven times Spanish champion, alongside International Master Michael Rahal.
They will combine technical explanations with historical aspects, biographies, anecdotes and many other sides of this fascinating game, one of the world’s riches activities in content.
By means of the super tournament, Dos Hermanas will once again become one of the centres of chess attention during April.
More information: www.doshermanas.net
Press chief: Leontxo García