CZECH OPEN 2014

25th year of international chess, bridge and games festival

10.7. – 27.7. 2014, Pardubice, CEZ Arena

http://www.czechopen.net

Festival news

The 25th International Chess and Games Festival CZECH OPEN started on July 10th. As usual take place in hockey CEZ Arena in Pardubice.

The very first tournament of CZECH OPEN was really traditionally Open championship of Czech Republic KONICA MINOLTA OPEN. In this tournament took place 100 four-member teams. “We are very happy to have 100 teams in this tournament. There are traditionally very strong players, and whole tournament is very popular,” said the director of festival Jan Mazuch.

This tournament is also played as Championship of Czech Republic. After seven rounds gold medals and champion title went to Czech team ŠK Zikuda Turnov I. Second andt third place also went to Czech teams – ŠK Zikuda Turnov A and ŠK Era Poštovní Spořitelna A. Last year gold medallist Russian team Yamal ended on eight place, which was really surprising. “KONICA MINOLTA OPEN was very successful tournament for Czech teams. They took the best seven places in the final standing,” said the director of the festival Jan Mazuch.

The first weekend of the event was traditionally dedicated to games. There are tournaments in various disciplines, such as Rubik’s cube, Scrabble, Renju, Gomoku, Mancala, Go and many others. The most popular among the spectators is definitely the tournament in assembling the Rubik’s cube. The best time in assembling the classical Rubik’s cube reached Hungarian Hunor Bózsing, his time was 10,11s. Hungary was the most successful country in various disciplines of cubing, but this year also Czech players were very strong and took together 4 medals.

After the weekend, the other chess tournaments were proceeding. Bughouse, blitz chess, superblitz and blitz marathon. One of the most star-studded event was the Fischerrandom chess tournament with GM Navara David (2716), GM Vorobiov (2591) and GM Lalic Bogdan (2482) on the first places of the start list.

Another star-studded tournament will be the two-day rapid-chess tournament PARDUBICKY KRAJ OPEN. We expect for example GM Nisipeanu, GM Navara, GM Bryzgalin ang GM Oparin will take place in this tournament.

Czech Open Festival draws to a phase, when the competitors taking part in the main tournaments meet in the ČEZ Arena. These tournaments will begin on 18th July and continue up to the 27th July.

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


David Navara