Echesspedia

Capital of Belgium. The first international chess activities started in 1853 with a match between Howard Staunton and Rives 6-2 and another one between von Heydebrand und der Lasa and Staunton 7-6 but stopped by the first named for business reason.

The first international tournament was organized in 1936 with Jacques Lieses as winner, the seond one, 48 years later was won by Julian Hogdson.
The Dutch Insurance Company Ohra sponsored three strong tournaments between 1985 and 1987. Viktor Korchnoi won the first, Garry Kasparov just crowned World Champion won the second event which was at the time one highest category (16) ever organized, and the third event, an encounter between men team vs. Ladies team finished with the score of 16-16.

Julian Hogdson won the 1st Iclicki Masters in 1984, William Watson won the 2^nd edition in 1986, Jeroen Piket the 3^rd Masters in 1987 and Paul Van der Sterren succeeded in the 4^th edition which was also the Zonal 1.1 championship in 1993.

SWIFT, a company specialized in telecomunication between banks, organized under the great interest of its General Director Bessel Kok few exceptional tournaments from 1986 until 1988.
The winners were: 1986 Karpov,1987 Kasparov & Ljubojevic, 1988 Kasparov. In 1991 SWIFT organized the four matches for the world chess championship quarterfinals and finally in 1992 Adams won the farewell Rapid Chess tournament.