Chess tournament opens Gib to the world, Bossano says

Sir Joe Bossano, Minister for Economic Development, Enterprise, Telecommunications and the Gibraltar Savings Bank, visited the 18th edition of the Gibraltar International Chess Festival.

On day four of the Gib Masters he made the opening move at the start of play between Ivan Cheparinov from Georgia and Maksim Chigaev from Russia.

He told the packed main hall that Gibraltar was very lucky and proud to host the festival and of how it had grown in strength annually close to two decades.

“It is good for us to be the host and for people on the other side of the world to know that we are here and the commitment we have to this chess tournament,” he affirmed.

Sir Joe congratulated the organisers in yet another successful event emphasising his belief that chess is an exceptional thing that humans do and which continues to test the one thing that distinguishes them as a life form.

“This is something we need to encourage our young people to do so that increasingly we do better,” he added.

Interviewed on the Festival’s webscast by Fiona Steil-Antoni, Sir Joe, recognised chess was in a class of its own even though he did admit he did not know how to play the game.

Gibraltar, he said, was supporting the event financially because of the exposure the Rock gets with so many chess players attending the tournament from all over the world.