The International Livigno Chess Open, probably Europe's "highest" International Tournament (at 1800m above sea level), ended Saturday, 18th November. Despite being at the first edition, it has succeeded in having a good coverage by mass media, both local and international. The official website www.livignoscacchi.it had live coverage of the tournament. During the last days, hundreds of chess enthusiast literally flooded it virtually from all over the world, something the organizers were pleasantly surprised of.

Until the end the tournament had no certain winner. Candidates were Grandmaster Igor Naumkin and the Bulgarian IM Petar G. Arnaudov, with GM Arkadij Rotstein just behind them.


After a 4-hour-long chess match, Naumkin won against the Italian Alexander Bertagnolli (Fide master since 2006), whereas Arnaudov and Rotstein had a draw. “I hoped to be first, but it's ok. In the last round I made draw because with this I secure my Grand Master norm” said Arnaudov, who was happy on how the tournament was managed.

Naumkin paid tribute to his opponents. “All matches have been hard – he declared – I liked this tournament a lot, also from the organization point of view”.

Third and fourth place for the two players with the highest Elo in the tournament: Arkadij Rotstein and Emilio Cordova. On Thursday the latter won a precious hand made glass chessboard during the Grand Prix Distillati Mazzetti d'Altavilla blitz tournament.


All players were happy by the way this tournament was organized and agreed to meet next year in Livigno, for the 2011 edition. Among them, also the Italian Chess Federation representative expressed his satisfaction.

Adriano Pedrana