We are ready!

The playing venue
(Photo: Tom Eriksen)

Fagernes Chess International starts today with 146 participants.

Highest rated is GM Abhimanyu Puranik (IND 2618) ahead of GM Rinat Jumbayev (KAZ 2598), GM Krishnan Sasikiran (IND 2578) and GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly (IND 2574).

The main Norwegian hope is IM Elham Amar (2567), ranked as number 5. Amar won several strong international opens last year, and is waiting for FIDE to confirm his GM-title.

The first round will start at 17.30 CET. Pairings and results may be found here.
The live games will have a 15-minute delay.

Two months to go! 

We are very happy and a bit surprised to find no less than 112 players in the list of registered participants at this date, two months before the first round in our Easter tournament for 2024!

The GM group almost certainly will reach a median Elo above 2300, and title norm chances will be brilliant as we can find 15 players with a GM title and 29 players with an IM or a WGM title!

The hotel will be fully reconstructed following last year´s flood. Following this we can again use the conference venue inside the hotel, and the swimming pool as well as the gym will be available.

We will do what we can to get in all qualified chess friends interested in playing our tournament from March 24 to March 31 2024, but lack of hotel rooms and/or seats in the playing venue and airport transfer might be a problem with so many requests. Following this we now recommend all interested players to contact us well in time. We can guarantee access for the first 140 players, and will consider the situation again if/when reaching that number.

Recommended international tournaments 

The Fagernes organizer is happy to cooperate with the organizers of a few other high-quality tournaments with long time limits. Fortunately Reykjavik Open 2024 this year will finish a few days before the start of our tournament, making it possible for players to combine these two great Nordic title tournaments.

For chess friends searching for a title tournament for the New Year Holiday 2023/2024, we can safely recommend both the Rilton Cup in Sweden and the Caplin Hastings Masters in England.

Finally for players enjoying a more intensive tournament with shorter time limits, we have no doubts recommending our Norwegian colleagues in Kragerø for your winter holiday in 2024!

Welcome to 
Fagernes Chess International!

The tournament is played at the major Norwegian Chess Hotel Scandic Valdres

at Fagernes, 187 km north of Oslo.

Main organizer is Hans Olav Lahlum in cooperation with Sotra Sjakklubb.

Hans Olav Lahlum

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Hans Olav Lahlum (born 1973) is a well known Norwegian chess player, chess organizer and chess TV commentator, having the titles of International Organizer (IO) and International Arbiter (IA) from the World Chess Federation FIDE. 

Lahlum organized numerous international tournaments at Gausdal 1999-2008, Oslo 2011-2014 and Fagernes 2014-2023. 

He has also been chief arbiter in many other large tournaments including the Norwegian championships 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2019.