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The Arctic Chess Challenge took place in Tromsø from August 4th-12th, 2007, organised by the Tromsø Sjakklubb as a nine-round Swiss, with time controls of 2 hours for 40 moves + 1 hour for 20 + 30 minutes to finish the game. There were 99 players from 16 countries, with 11 GM's above 2580, including top seed Magnus Carlsen. The total prize fund is 11,050 Euros.
The winner: GM Alexander Moiseenko, Ukraine, with a 2740 performance
Gotcha! In the end Moiseenko caught Lie (left), who had defeated him in round
four
Beating IM Venkatachalam Saravanan (count: nine syllables!) in round five
Final standings (after nine rounds)
| Pl. | Name | Rtng | Nat. | Pts | TB | Perf. |
| 1 | GM Alexander Moiseenko | 2641 | UKR | 7.5 | 2740 | |
| 2 | GM Kjetil A. Lie | 2536 | NOR | 7.0 | 44.0 | 2675 |
| 3 | GM Vugar Gashimov | 2655 | AZE | 7.0 | 40.5 | 2657 |
| 4 | GM Magnus Carlsen | 2710 | NOR | 7.0 | 38.5 | 2609 |
| 5 | GM Bartlomiej Macieja | 2596 | POL | 6.5 | 43.0 | 2623 |
| 6 | GM Simen Agdestein | 2582 | NOR | 6.5 | 41.5 | 2577 |
| 7 | GM Bartosz Socko | 2660 | POL | 6.5 | 39.0 | 2576 |
| 8 | GM Michail Brodsky | 2595 | UKR | 6.5 | 39.0 | 2510 |
| 9 | GM Mikhail Gurevich | 2633 | TUR | 6.5 | 38.5 | 2520 |
| 10 | GM Vladimir Epishin | 2587 | RUS | 6.0 | 41.5 | 2521 |
| 11 | GM Vladimir Burmakin | 2581 | RUS | 6.0 | 40.5 | 2504 |
| 12 | Joachim Thomassen | 2075 | NOR | 6.0 | 39.5 | 2423 |
| 13 | GM Victor Mikhalevski | 2598 | ISR | 6.0 | 38.0 | 2414 |
| 14 | IM Venkatachalam Saravanan | 2355 | IND | 6.0 | 38.0 | 2393 |
| 15 | Gunnar Berg Hanssen | 2242 | NOR | 6.0 | 37.5 | 2425 |
| 16 | FM Karsten Larsen | 2325 | DEN | 6.0 | 37.0 | 2379 |
| 17 | FM Diego Suarez Pousa | 2418 | ESP | 6.0 | 36.5 | 2353 |
| 18 | GM Heikki Westerinen | 2385 | FIN | 6.0 | 36.5 | 2347 |
| 19 | IM Eduard Porper | 2474 | ISR | 6.0 | 36.5 | 2319 |
| 20 | IM Gediminas Sarakauskas | 2450 | LTU | 6.0 | 35.0 | 2301 |
| 21 | Lars M Andreassen | 2221 | NOR | 6.0 | 34.0 | 2293 |
| 22 | IM Joanna Dworakowska | 2320 | POL | 6.0 | 33.5 | 2299 |
Before the event, and in the expectancy that we would be visiting the Arctic Challenge in Tromsø, Henrik Carlsen invited us to join him and his wife Sigrun (and possibly Magnus) to climb the Tromsdalstind, which at 1238 meters is the highest mountain in the vicinity close to Tromsø city. It turns out that Magnus' 91-year-old granduncle, a former meteorologist and musician, has been marking the route up the mountain, and made some 500 climbs, over the past 25 years, to complete this task!
Since we were not there to join them Henrik and Sigrun decided to scale
the
1044 meters "Big Blue Man" – in Norwegian Store Blåmannen.
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Blåmannen bears an eerie similarity to a mountain in the Western Ghats of India. It is the "Duke's Nose", named after the Duke of Wellington, whose ample facial appendage this cliff is said to resemble. Duke's Nose is 12 km from the city of Lonavla, and is visible from the highway while driving towards Mumbai. Click the attached thumbnail to enlarge. To get an impression of the Khandala region visit this photo pictorial. See you on Duke's Nose next year, Henrik? The kid can play in the Khandala GM. |
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Do not ask us how we unearthed this factoid – it's a long an convoluted story for another occasion.
Henrik Carlsen on the way to the top: scaling the 1044 meters high "Big
Blue Man".
Report by Frederic Friedel
