The Chess Club Gardena is the host of this tournament and it is normally held in early June. 3rd edition was held from 4th to 11th of June 2016 with a prize fund of 10,000 Euros.
Ruben Bernadi, the organizer always welcomed every guest warmly. He and his team, regional and national partners, would do their best to ensure a memorable and joyous event of this chess festival in the beautiful region of mountainous area north of Italy.
Two sections are organised - Open A for players rated over 1900, and Open B for the U2000 players. Both will be completed over 9 rounds of Swiss system. Time contol is 40 moves / 90 min. +30 Min. +30 rest sec./mossa. Details as follows :
| Tournament: | Open A | Open B |
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| Admission | Elo> = 1,900 | Elo <2000 |
| Elo rating | FSI / FIDE | FSI / FIDE |
| progress | 9 Rounds - Swiss System | 9 Rounds - Swiss System |
| Cadence game | 40 moves / 90 min. +30 Min. +30 rest sec./mossa |
| Entry | € 70.00 | € 70.00 |
| Juniors (born after 31.12.1999) | € 40.00 | € 40.00 |
| FM | € 40.00 | |
| GM, WGM, IM, WIM | free | |
| For registration after May 30, charge of € 10,00 |
Note : if you are not from EU country or it is too expensive to do bank transfer to pay the fee, you can arrange with Ruben to pay at the venue without any penalty charges.
One advantage is, after this tournament is over, another tournament of similar capacity is held in nearby FORNI DI SOPRA. Transport is arranged with EUR20 from Ortisei to Forni Di Sopra.
Photos of Tournament venues :
Photo below is taken just outside the tournament hall. On the right, you can see a small bar selling coffee, juice, water, cookies, cakes and chocolates.
Since Italian is particular in making good coffee, this bar actually ground the coffee on the spot to make fragrant espresso or cappucino. The side effect is the noise. Every time someone orders espresso, you can hear the machine grinding the coffee if you sit near the exit of the tournament hall.
You can also see the chess books selling outside the hall. Despite being a chess player himself, he is not too sensitive in keeping his noise down. Whenever a potential customers come over, you can hear everything they said even if you sit ten meters away.
This lobby is also the place which the players like to socialize
during and after their games are finished. Yes, you read it right, "during and after". The analyzing room is one floor down, but the players simply love to stick around these lobby to socialize. The noise just gets louder and louder as more players finished their games.
Arbiters are frequently seen to come out to this area to ask the people to lower down their voice. It works for a while, but some people, just can't help getting excited in their chat, the voice is raised again.
So, after a few complaints, the arbiters have to close the doors of the tournament hall.
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| Ortisei Chess - Lobby |
The tournament hall is beautiful, undoubtedly. Ortisei is a place famous for crafts and arts.
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| Ortisei Tournament Hall |
In the photo below, you can see the beautiful artistic scruptures on the stage, with spot lights shining on them.
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| Ortisei Tournament Hall and Stage |
If you look closely, there are only 2 doors to this hall. One door enter via the lobby, shown in first photo above. And in the photo below, you can see another doors at the back, which leads to the balcony of the building. This building is located right in the centre of the Ortisei town, next to a community church, on a busy street. To reduce the street noise, the doors below are always closed, and there are notice on the doors saying that the doors are to remained closed at all times.
There are no windows to the hall.
There is a small door to the back stage room, and in that room, there are windows. Those windows are opened during tournament. However, there are not much air coming from the back stage room to the main hall, since the windows are not directly located opposite to the door to tournament hall.
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| Ortisei Tournament Hall |
So, the next question is, is there any air conditioning or air ventilation in this hall ? The organizer answer was : if they switch on the air conditioning, the lights much be switched off.
So, the answer is, no, there is no ventilation in the hall. With spot light shining on stage, the temperature goes up after some time.
As soon as the tournament starts, with about 250 players fully occupying the hall, the hall is already humid and stuffy. So, if you see the chess results in year 2016, there were so many upsets in the tournament. If you think you can play well under an almost fully enclosed hall, this place is the place for you to gain rating very quickly. If you can't, you will be struggling to keep your ratings.
The video below shows the tournament hall from 360 degree view :
TOILETS
The official toilets if located two floors down the tournament hall. You have a choice to take the spiral staircases as shown in photo below, or the lift. The staircase is much faster.
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| Spiral staircases to the Official toilets |
There is a one-man toilet on the same floor as the tournament venue, however, it has been restricted to disabled personell only. See photo below. And hence it is always locked.
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| Toilet for disabled only during tournament |
Including the waiting time, this lift will need about 3 - 5 minutes to bring you down two floors and another 3 - 5 minutes to go up. So, use the stairs if you cannot wait.
1 floor : Tournament hall
-1 floor : WC (toilet)
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| Lift to go two floors down to toilets |
Ruben Bernadi spoke during the opening ceremony. He is really committed to make this tournament a successful and memorable event. Organization was very well done. He arranged professional photographers to take excellents photos and video, which you can view in their
website. He personally sent the video to all the players. And when the tournament is over, he send email to everyone to ask for the feedback to improve.
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| Rueben Bernadi |
Ortisei and Selva, beautiful towns in North Italy
Ortisei and the nearby town Selva, are such beautiful towns, with snowcap moutains at the background. Photos below :
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| Bus trip to Ortisei |
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| View on the highway to Ortisei |
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| Ortisei town from my apartment |
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| Window View of Ortisei town |
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| Window View of Ortisei town |
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| Ortisei town |
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| Ortisei town |
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| Ortisei town |
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| Cable Car up the highland for hiking |
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| Ortisei Ski lift |
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| Ortisei town bridge |
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| Ortisei town |
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| Ortisei town |
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| Mountain View in Ortisei |
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| Ortisei town church |
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| Ortisei main bus stop |
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| Church beside the tournament venue |
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| Parade outside the tournament venue |
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| Parade in Ortisei |
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| Ortisei town |
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| Ortisei scenic view |
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| Ortisei |
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| Ortisei scenic mountain view |
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| Ortisei children playground |
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| Ortisei children playground |
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| Ski hill |
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| Selva town |
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| Selva town with stream |
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| Selva town scenic view |
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| Selva town scenic view |
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| Selva town ski hill in summer |
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| Selva mountain view |
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| Selva town ski hill in summer |
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| Selva scenic view |
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| Selva town |
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| Selva in Italy |
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| Selva town flower field in Spring |
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| Selva route to small castle |
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| Selva - flower field in Spring |
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| Selva |
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| Selva |
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| Selva |
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| Selva |
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| Selva |
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| Ortisei Hiking Trail Route Description |
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| Ortisei Hiking Trail Route Description |
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| Ortisei Hiking Trail Route Map |
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| Bakery in Ortisei |
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| Apple Strudel in Ortisei |
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| Ortisei - small statues |
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| Ortisei Arts |
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| Ortisei Sculpture |
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| Ortisei Sculpture |
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| Ortisei Sculpture |
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| Ortisei Sculpture |
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| Ortisei |
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| Ortisei |
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| View outside tournament venue |
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| Streets outside tournament hall |
Video below is taken during a bus ride from Ortisei town to Selva :
If you stay in Ortisei, the hotel or land lady will give you free bus pass which you can use to travel unlimited in the these three towns - Ortisei, Santa Cristina and Selva. It is part of the promotion done by the local government to promote tourism in this region. Truly lovely!
I would really like to return to this town again to appreciate the magnificent view of the scenic towns, and play good games at the tournaments, if and only if the tournament hall can be equipped with air conditioning or good ventilation.
In June, the temperature goes from 12 deg C to 20 deg C. It can be cool outside the building, but when the tournament hall is fully enclosed and packed with 250 people, no matter how cool is the weather outside, it is very warm and stuffy (hard to breathe) in the hall.
