PARDUBICE – Many chess tournaments took place in Pardubice during last week. One of the most important and star-studded was rapid chess tournament Pardubicky kraj Open, with participation of 29 GMs. “This is one of the strongest rapid tournaments and we are really happy about the interest for taking part in it,” said director of Czech Open Jan Mazuch. The winner of this tournament was GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy from Ukraine. „Rapid is my favorite discipline, I am satisfied with lots of games. I hope that the victory will motivate me to the next games in Czech Open. I feel good, a couple of months before this tournament I spent training and I am ready to fight for the victory in the main tournament Pardubice Open“ said the winner of rapid chess tournament GM Bernadskiy. Interesting performances were also shown by the Indian players, remarkable 14th place got 12 years old IM Gukesh (1519). „It could have been even better, in the 4th round I lost the winning game with Chinmay Kulkarni. I have not played the rapid chess tournament in the last four years, so I have such a low rating and I can be at least partially satisfied. Recently I got the title of International Master, in Pardubice it is my goal to fight for the Grand Master's norm“ said the promising Indian.

Final standing of rapid chess tournament:
1. GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy (Ukraine)
2. GM Sergei Movsesian (Armenia)
3. GM Philipp Schlosser (Germany)

This rapid tournament was played also as Open Czech Championship. The best Czech player was GM Jiri Stocek.

Final standing of Czech Championship:
1. GM Jiri Stocek
2. GM Vojtech Plat
3. GM Vitezslav Rasik

The main Grand master tournament Pardubice Open has started on Friday 20th July. The total of 309 players registered, including those from South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Israel, United States of America, India and many European countries. “In this tournament, we have many players, who are really strong and we are glad that many people abroad are interested in our festival. There are big delegations especially from Germany, India, Russia and Ukraine” said Jan Mazuch, the director of Czech Open. In the main event of festival, 43 GMs, 3 WGMs, 66 IMs and 7 WIMs participate. “The starting list is very strong, like every year for that matter," summed up Mazuch.

Number one seeded for this year is GM Jorden Van Foreest (2640) from Netherlands. Number two in starting list is Russian GM David Paravyan (2638) and number three is GM Sergei Movsesian (2635) from Armenia.

In the first four rounds there were two players who won all their games, that are GM Nitzan Steinberg from Israel and IM Vojtech Zwardon from Czech Republic. Zwardon is a big surprise of the tournament and he confirms a great form. Every year, a lot of foreign players come to Pardubice and they make a lot of surprises in tournament just like this year. “The strength of this tournament in Pardubice is very high, because there is a lot of unknown young players from all of the world. We can see here, as last year, the most promising youngster of the world, indian GM Praggnanandhaa (2529)” explained festival chess expert IM Petr Pisk.

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