CZECH OPEN 2018

29th year of international chess and games festival

12.7. – 29.7. 2018, Pardubice, ČSOB Pojišťovna Arena

http://www.czechopen.net

PARDUBICE – The 29th International Chess and Games Festival Czech Open started on July 12th. As usual take place in hockey ČSOB Pojišťovna Arena in Pardubice.

The first tournament of Czech Open was really successful for Czech teams. In Cesky Lev Kolesovice Open, 121 four-member teams participated. “We are very happy to have 121 teams in this tournament, the number of teams from foreign countries is higher than last year. There are traditionally very strong players and teams, the tournament played GM Viktor Laznicka (2669), second best player of Czech Republic” said the director of festival Jan Mazuch. This tournament is also played as Championship of Czech Republic. After seven rounds gold medals remained in Pardubice, because 2222 SK Polabiny A won. On the second place of final ranking was team SK Oaza Praha A, third ended team TJ Pankrac from Czech Republic too. On starting list were 9 GMs, 2 WGMs, 13 IMs, 2 WIMs and the best player of the event was Czech player GM Tomas Polak, who scored 6,5/7.

The first weekend of the event was traditionally dedicated to games. There are tournaments in various disciplines, such as backgammon, go, gomoku, mancala, scrabble and many others. The new game was a PubQuiz, which was also played as Championship of Czech Republic. After the weekend, the other chess tournaments were proceeding – blitz chess, superblitz and blitz marathon. One of the most popular event was the Fischerrandom chess tournament with GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy or GM Vojtech Plat. Winner of this tournament became Ukrainian Vitaliy Bernadskiy (2586). The best player in the Czech Open is Pentala Harikrishna, who has rating 2734. He is the 22nd world player and he played open pairs blitz tournament. Another star-studded tournament is the two-day rapid-chess tournament, which started on Wednesday. There are 29 grandmasters in the start list, top seeded is GM Sergei Movsesian (2650) and GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy (2631).

Czech Open Festival draws to a phase, when the competitors taking part in the main tournament meet in the ČSOB Pojišťovna Arena. This tournament will begin on Friday 20th July and continue up to the Saturday 28th July.

The results of all tournaments, photogallery and games are available on www.czechopen.net.

Adam Joska
Czech Open 2018
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