Also Lars Karlsson returns to Norway. He won the Open Norwegian Championship of 1979(!), and recently he placed 4th as best Swede on homeground at the Rilton Cup 2010-11 in Stockholm.'

The first edition of “Norsk Sjakkfestival” has got an increasing and satisfactory number of participants to be its first year, and still it is possible to sign in for all the tournaments of the festival program. The A Group of the Open Norwergian Championship 2011 has got 78 participants by now, and 10 of them Grandmasters, headed by the highest rated player Sergey Tiviakov (2624). GM Lars Karlsson, Sweden has substituted Carsten Høi of Denmark who had to withdraw.

The “Fagernes Grand Prix” starting on Sunday, has got 46 players on the starting list, and the B and C groups of the Open Norwegian Championships, from Wednesday to Sunday, 45 participantes. In addition there is the Children’s Grand Prix on Wednesday and Fagernes Easter blitz chess Thursday evening. All the tournaments take place at the festival hotel Quality Hotel & Resort Fagernes.

We also expect quite some visits from interested people staying in the mountains around Fagernes (Valdres) during the Easter week (a Norwegian habit). This year the skiing conditions in the mountains will probalby be clearly less perfect than the chess conditions at Fagernes. Our tournaments are open to players at all levels, and same applies to chess training, a pure amateur tournament, and several lectures on chess and chess history included in the festival program.