Pentala and Stefansson arrive for SPICE Cup

The first two players to arrive last night for the SPICE Cup were GMs Pentala and Stefansson.

Grandmaster Harikrishna Pentala (India): Born in the village Vinjanam Padu in India in 1986, Grandmaster Pentala started playing chess at the age of four and a half. He is one of the top three players in India, which is a well-recognized powerhouse. In 2000, he broke legendary Indian Grandmaster Anand’s record of being the youngest International Master and again in 2001 for being the youngest Grandmaster from India. He has won many impressive titles in his career already. Some of his biggest accomplishments include winning the 2001 Commonwealth Championship, the 2002 Hastings, the 2004 World Junior Championship, the 2005 Bermuda Invitational, the 2005 Hoogeveen Invitational, the 2005 Tiayuan Invitational, the 2006 Reykjavik Open, the 2006 Marx Gyorgy Memorial, and the 2006 World Chess960 Junior Championship. He has represented his country in every Chess Olympiad since the age of 14.

Grandmaster Hannes Stefansson (Iceland): He was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1972, the year Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in the match of the century in his hometown. He learned to play chess at 5. He is currently the top player in Iceland. Some of his best results include 1st at the 1987 World Championship Under 16, the Bronze medal at the 1992 Chess Olympiad in Manila, 1st at the 1997 Viking games, 1st at the 1999 Lost Boys Chess Festival, 1st at the Reykjavik Open, and 10-time Icelandic Champion, including 2008. He has won every national championship he has ever entered.