ISLE OF MAN
Reproduction, © Bloomsbury Auctions
The Monarch Assurance PLC International Chess Tournament was the strongest English Open since the Lloyds Bank Open closed its festival in 1994. The Ocean Castle Hotel in Port Erin was the venue for the Masters Open. Patrick Taylor, managing director of Port St.Mary-based Monarch Assurance has supported the tournament to the tune of well over half a million pounds in 13 years. After a break of a couple of years, the Open came back in 2014 under the name of PokerStars then Chess.com.
In 2004 the organizers hosted also the 1st World Senior Team Championship won jointly by Germany and Israel.
The winners were: 1995 Alexander Baburin, 1997 Antony Miles, Matthew Sadler and Alexander Baburin, 1998 Nigel Short and Emil Sutovsky, 1999 Emil Sutovsky, 2001 Mikhail Ulibin, 2002 Vladimir Epishin, 2003 Simen Agdestein, 2004 Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, 2005 Alexander Areshchenko, 2007 Mateusz Bartel, 2014 Nigel Short, 2015 P. Harikrishna, 2016 Pavel Eljanov, 2017 Magnus Carlsen, 2018 Radoslaw Wojtaszek, 2019 David J Ireland.
