SAN SEBASTIAN Tournament

A Spanish Basque resort near the French border, which held two major tournaments in 1911 and 1912. The first was won by J.R. Capablanca, and the second was won by Akiba Rubinstein (12½) ahead of Rudolf Speelmann (12) and Aron Nimzowitsch (12).

The International Tournament at San Sebastian was held from 20 February to 17 March and was won by Jose Raul Capablanca of Havana with a score of 9½ out of a possible 14. The participants of the tournament included all the world outstanding chess players except the World Champion Emanuel Lasker. The time limit was 15 moves per hour and the prizes were 5,000 French francs for the first place, 3,000 for the second and 2,000 for the third. The Cuban player was the leader through the tournament, having lost only one game to Rubinstein in the thirteenth round. Rubinstein from St. Petersburg did not lose any game and shared the second and third prizes with Vidmar from Prague who lost only one game to the American Champion Marshall – the fourth prize winner. At the beginning of the tournament, he was scored to be the equal leader, but in the thirteenth round, he was defeated only once by Duras from Prague and lost his opportunity. In the same thirteenth round, Capablanca was beaten by Rubinstein from Russia; after this loss Capablanca only drew the last games and steadily was the leader of the tourney. Vidmar shared the second place with Rubinstein, whose record consisted of four wins and ten drawn games. Capablanca, Vidmar, Marshall, Schlechter and Tarrasch all lost only one game each. Since 1977, the city has hosted every January an International Open tournament.

The last winners of the Open were: 2005 Kevin Spraggett, 2006 Stewart Conquest, 2007 Daniel Campora, 2008 Keren Movsziszian, 2009 Arthur Kogan, 2010 Aramis Alvarez Pedraza  and 2011 Moreno Ruiz, 2012 Igor Rausis, 2013 Daniel Alsina, 2014 Renier Vazquez Igarza, 2015 Bader Al-Hajiri, 2016 Jaime Santos Latasa, 2017 Marc Narciso Dublan, 2018 Christof Sielecki, 2019 Renier Vazquez Igarza.