The opening ceremony of the simultaneous chess exhibition and world record attempt began on August 13th at 9:00 while near 700 participants (500 players and 200 reserve player) and near thousand spectators were present in the playing venue "Yadegar-e-Emam" multi-purpose sport saloon in the "Engelab sport complex" in Tehran.
The President of the Iranian National Olympic committee, Mr. Mohammad Ali Abadi, who is also Iran vice President, some of his deputies, FIDE Vice President Mr. Nizar Elhaj, as FIDE official observer, President of Iranian chess federation Dr. Mohammad Ebarahim Maddahi and many Iranian famous sportsmen such as Mr. Hadi Saei, three times Olympic medal winner and recent Olympic champion in Taekwondo who is member of Tehran council and many famous actors and movie stars participated in the ceremony.
The games officially started at 10:00 o'clock. The 500 players all were present at the time on their boards. GM Morteza Mahjoob did his first moves in 4 hours. The first (and only) break for lunch was after 9th move at 14:30 to 15:00. After the break all players came back to their boards and games continued. At 23:30 Morteza succeeded to achieve 88.42% over 364 boards. The remaining games continued and finally at 04:12 on August 14, 2009 he finished last game.
The final result over 500 boards was: 397 wins, 90 draws, 13 loses with total score of 442 and score percentage of 88.4%.
The main sponsor of this event was "Candy" an Italian producer of home appliances. The sponsor covered all organizing expenses as well as cash prizes for every winner and everybody who could make draw. Also some prizes from their products by lottery for spectators.
Organizer of the event was Iran Chess Federation. Chief organizer and technical director was IO Hadi Karimi, Chief Arbiter was IA Hosseingholi Saloor, first deputy of chief arbiter was IA Hamid Reza Pourshahmari, three other Deputy Arbiters were: IA N. Kananazar, IA F. Eskandary, IA. H. Kazemiashtiyani, two FIDE Aribiters and 48 National Arbiters refereed in this event. Near 30 people helped in organizing team.
The oldest and youngest were 81 and 4 years old. Many International and national rated players participated and showed stiff competition. Also 3 Iranian strong blind chess players competed till last hours.
Many TV channels and other Media covered the event from beginning to end. The games had live coverage by IRIB3 (Iranian National broadcasting) for near 2 hours in three different segments. All daily newspapers as well as all news agencies put the event on the front page.
The website of event: www.Iran500.ir/en/home.html
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