Gibraltar Chess Festival

The inaugural edition, then known as the Gibtelecom Gibraltar Chess Festival, took place in 2003, when fifty-nine competitors took part, of whom 24 held the FIDE Grandmaster title.

In 2012, special stamps were issued by the Gibraltar Post Office to commemorate the tenth edition of the chess festival.

[7] In 2012 Chinese grandmaster Hou Yifan, at the time ranked number two female chess player in the world, scored 8 points from a possible 10 in the Masters, tying for first place with Nigel Short before losing a play-off match for the first prize.

[9] The highest score achieved in a Gibraltar Masters event has been 9 points from a possible 10, by Vasyl Ivanchuk in 2011, with a performance rating of 2968.

Hou had grown dissatisfied in recent years with playing in women-only tournaments, and had just dropped out of the Women's World Chess Championship cycle.