CZECH OPEN 2016

27th International Chess and Games Festival

14.7. – 31.7. 2016, Pardubice, Tipsport arena

http://www.czechopen.net 


PARDUBICE – Many chess tournaments took place in Pardubice during the last week. One of the most important and star-studded was rapid chess tournament, in which also very strong chess players took part. “This is one of the strongest rapid tournament and we are really happy about the interest for taking part in it. Especially we are very glad to have GM Navara and GM Movsesian in start list almost every year,” said director of Czech Open Jan Mazuch. The winner of this tournament was GM Kacper Piorun from Poland.

Final standing of rapid chess tournament:
1. GM Kacper Piorun (Poland)
2. GM Stanislav Novikov (Russia)
3. IM Abhimanyu Puranik (India)

This rapid tournament was played also as open Czech Championship. The best Czech player was GM Stepan Zilka.

Final standing of Czech Championship:
1. GM Stepan Zilka
2. GM Robert Cvek
3. IM Vitezslav Rasik

The main Grand master tournament Pardubice Open has also started on Friday, July 22. The total of 291 players registered, including those from South Korea, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Brazil and many European countries. “In this tournament, we have many players, who are really great and we are glad that many people abroad are interested in our festival,” said Jan Mazuch, the director of Czech Open. On the main event of festival also play 45 GMs, 65 IMs and 71 FMs. “The starting list is very strong, like every year for that matter. I think that this year's competition is the best in last few years," summed up Mazuch.

Number one seed for this year is GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2676) from India. Number two in starting list is GM Sergei Movsesian (2666), winner from year 1995, so he has a chance win after incredible 21 years. Number three is Viktor Laznicka (2654), who won this tournament last year.

In the first three rounds there were 7 players who won all their games, among them GM Gutman (Ukraine), GM Potapov (Russia) or IM Cerveny (Czech Republic). Every year came to Pardubice a lot of foreign players, who no one knows, and they made a lot of surprises in tournament just like this year. “The strength of this tournament in Pardubice is the relatively easy way of attaining the grandmaster title, as there are so many grandmasters here that you play them almost all the time, even if you are a weaker player. At the same time, there are many players from abroad here, which is another condition for attaining the GM,” explained the festival chess expert, IM Petr Pisk.

Tournament organizers have prepared a surprise for fans from around the world. They can watch live broadcast from first chessboards on youtube channel. The link is on the official website of the Czech Open. All tournaments finish on Saturday July, 30.

Photo Gallery from Grand master tournament Pardubice Open is available at
http://www.czechopen.net/gallery/novinky/A/66/.

The results of all tournaments and games are available at http://www.czechopen.net/.

Jakub Burian
Czech Open 2016
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