Tag: Karlsruhe

Inside the World’s Largest Open Chess Tournament

The GRENKE Chess Festival is easily my favorite event on the calendar, and returning for my third time this year only confirms it. With 3,658 participants in 2026, it has solidified its spot as the world’s largest open tournament. Beyond the scale, what keeps me coming back is the impeccable organization and a vibe you simply won’t find anywhere else.

Comparing this to the 2024 edition, a few changes stood out. I stayed at Motel One through an organizer-provided discount, which was a great call the hotel is just a three-minute walk from the playing hall. I was also pleased to see the introduction was done in both German and English this year, one of my past suggestions to the organizers! Another suggestion is receiving pairings via WhatsApp/SMS, maybe from another edition.

The festival now features six different tournaments: three classical and three Freestyle Chess (Chess960). In Freestyle, pieces on the back rank are randomized, making it impossible to rely on opening preparation. The organizers are pushing this format hard, and the prizes for Freestyle are significantly higher. Each category is based on rating: A for 2000+ Elo, B for under 2000, and C for under 1600. I played in the Classical B Open, which was massive, over 1,500 people in my section alone!

The schedule was grueling: two rounds a day (at 10 AM and 4 PM) with a 90-minute + 30-second increment time control. That’s eight hours of chess a day! I started with a bang, winning my first three games, especially impressive since my second and third opponents were over 100 Elo points stronger than me. However, the intensity caught up in rounds 4 and 5, where I lost to two 1900+ players. I was winning round 5 until a late-game blunder cost me the point. I finished with a solid 4.5/9, and considering 8 of my 9 opponents were rated at least 100 points above me, I was thrilled to gain 15 Elo points.

With a performance rating of 1863, this was my best result since the pandemic. But more importantly, it was a much-needed break. For five days, the rest of the world disappeared, and it was just me and the board.

One funny highlight: the Schwarzwaldhalle venue borders the Karlsruhe Zoo. At one point, people visiting the zoo went from watching animals in cages to peering through the windows at a huge hall where 2,500 people were locked in deep thought over chessboards!

Karlsruhe

The modern city of Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 by Margrave Charles William and it translates to “Charles retreat”. The legend is that he build his new palace to find peace from his wife.

Karlsruhe Palace

Although I stayed for a week in Karlsruhe I only had time to visit the city between the chess tournament rounds.

View of Karlsruhe Zoo from the playing hall (Schwarzwaldhalle part of Kongresszentrum)

There is a big Zoo in Karlsruhe, next to the Congress center. It is particularly interesting for kids. They even have a polar bear and many exotic animals. You can interact with birds and some small monkeys. There is a cave full of bats where you can enter if you don’t mind leaving with a bat in your hair. One morning I won a game quickly and I spent a couple of hours walking in the Zoo garden.

Karlsruhe Zoo garden

In Karlsruhe there is a big gallery of paintings the State Art Gallery. Among the famous paintings displayed here are a nice Rembrandt self-portrait and some paintings by French impressionists as Monet, Cezanne, Degas, and Pissarro. The modern art gallery is located in the Orangery building near the main gallery.

I liked a painting by the expressionist painter Karl Hofer called “Self Portrait with Demons” from 1923. It has an interesting history. The painting was acquired by the State Art Gallery in 1923 but was returned to the painter in 1936 in exchange for another painting. The reason for this exchange was that the Nazi considered the painting “degenerate”. In 2018 the painting was acquired again by State Gallery and was displayed in the exposition 95 years later.

Karl Hofer – Self Portrait with Demons

Another interesting painting was Otto Dix’s – “Seven Deadly Sins” created in 1933 when the author was fired from his teaching position at Dresden Academy. As in Karl Hofer’s case, his work was considered “degenerated” by the Nazi regime. This is an allegorical painting representing the political situation in Germany in 1933 when Hitler became chancellor. A funny observation is that Dix painted Hitler’s moustache only after the war as a precaution. Otto Dix’s paintings were influenced by the horrors he saw as a combatant in World War I.

Otto Dix – The Seven Deadly Sins

Before hosting the Modern Art Gallery, the Orangery building was part of the Botanical Garden. Here in the XVIII and XIX centuries, they used to bring exotic plants to keep them from freezing during the winter. Karlsruhe has a rather small Botanical Garden located near the Palace.

Karlsruhe Botanical Garden

I like the food in Germany and Karlsruhe made no exception. They have many traditional restaurants but also a large variety of international cuisine.

This happens when you don’t speak German and the waitress doesn’t speak English. I was expecting a pork fillet.

The last thing I visited in Karlsruhe was the palace where hopefully Karl found his “ruhe” (peace). The palace has a tower from where you can admire the entire city as in the picture below. In the palace, there is a kind of history museum similar to the History Museum in Berlin only smaller but still big enough for someone to spend three to four hours during a visit. For me, the experience was quite interesting and captivating. As a consequence, I almost lost the train to Frankfurt Airport that day. The museum is called Badisches Landesmuseum and as the name says has many items from local history but is not limited to that.

View of Karlsruhe city from the Palace Tower

For a tourist Karlsruhe is an ideal place to stay if you want to visit the region. From here you can quickly reach to Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Tubingen or Ulm.