The 22nd edition of the EY Chess Trophy took place on March 21-22 in the EY France headquarters in Paris (EY is one of the biggest worldwide audit and advisory firms). It is a rapid tournament played by teams of four players from the same university, followed by a clock simul between an invited GM and the eight best teams of the tournament. After Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in 2013 and Laurent Fressinet in 2014, the guest GM this year was Judit Polgar, the greatest female player in history, who still continues to promote chess through various events and exhibitions despite her retirement from competitions.
The greatest female player ever: Judit Polgar
The level of this 22nd edition was particularly high, with the participation of a dozen titled players, including GM Maxime Lagarde and IMs Adrien Demuth, Quentin Loiseau, Julien Song and Christophe Sochacki. The strongest team, Polytech-Université de Nantes (GM Maxime Lagarde, FM Pierre Barbot, Ronan Le Goff, Mickael Hutois, Jules Marecailles), eventually managed to win the tournament with 6.5/7, conceding a single draw against Science Po Bordeaux. UPMC (FM Yvain Bruned, FM Wojtek Sochacki, Redwan Maatoug, Amiel Peiffer-Smadja) with 5.5/7 and X-ENSTA (Etienne Adam, Frédéric Li, Nicolas Pilté, Clément Jeannesson) with 5.0/7 came second and third respectively.
The winners of the tournament, Polytech Nantes
The eight teams qualified for the simultaneous exhibition were:
It was agreed with Judit that titled players wouldn’t take part in the simul. Despite this the average rating of the participants remained very high, with a lot of players rated above 2200. So things were going to be far from easy for the Hungarian chess queen.
The setting for the clock simul against eight teams of university players
Let the games begin – one against 8 x 3-4 players
As the qualified teams and Judit took place behind their boards, the remaining players stayed in the audience room where the games were broadcast and commented by Jean Claude Moingt, former French Federation president, and Anatoly Vaïsser, winner of the World Senior Chess Championship in 2010 and 2013. They were soon joined by the French top GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Laurent Fressinet.
Quite a surprise for Anatoli Vaisser and Jean-Claude Moingt to be joined by a unexpected commentator
Just to give you an idea of how tough these clock simuls are: you have the same amount of time as your opponents, which is one hour thirty minutes at the start of the game. Just that all your clocks are running simultaneously and you have to finish not one but eight games in that same time period! Also you constantly need to keep walking without taking a break and have to be always aware of the boards where your time is ticking by. Clock simuls are an ultimate test of not only your speed of decision making but also your stamina and endurance.
Judit took the simultaneous exhibition very seriously, as she decided to spend a lot of time behind each board right from the opening. The drawback of this strategy is that as time passed it became more and more difficult for her to play on eight boards. Therefore, she had to end some games quickly, or she was going to be in a serious time trouble.
Hard at work: after one hour and a half, Judit scored her first point against Universités de Paris
The look on the faces of the students from Paris University says it all
On six of the seven remaining boards Judit had the upper hand, but the commentators were thinking that one or two teams would be able to hold the draw. On the last board, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Laurent Fressinet were very enthusiastic about the position of the X-ENSTA team, which had a wonderful black bishop and a strong initiative on the kingside.
Team X-Ensta stretched Judit to the limit but in the end weren’t able to handle the time pressure
As the time continued to flow, both Judit and the teams were beginning to get into zeitnot, which inevitably caused some mistakes. Judit blundered in two games, losing a bishop against Paris 1 and INSA Rouen. She still managed to save the draw on the Paris 1 board, while she had to resign against INSA Rouen.
Paris 1 could have scored a victory had they decided to continue playing
These three young lads can be proud of their feat. They were the only ones who could beat Judit.
Judit won against Dauphine-ILERI and ISEP, while Polytech Nantes managed to take her into an ending king and two knights versus king, and Science Po Bordeaux managed to hold a rook and two pawns versus rook and pawn.
Team of tenacious defenders from Polytech Nantes
Team Science Po Berdeaux managed to hold Judit to a draw with the French Winawer
The final score was therefore four wins, three draws and one loss in the favour of Judit. Scoring 5.5/8 in a such a challenging clock simul was a great feat by the Queen of Chess. We sent a few questions to Judit, asking her how she felt playing in this event, and this is what she had to say:
“This was the first time in my life that I played a clock simul. I knew that the players would be stronger than in the usual simul exhibitions. It was also interesting experience that my opponents were teams of 2-5 players. I was doing fine until the last half an hour, more or less, when in some games I started to get short on time and made some serious mistakes – actually some blunders.”
Judit felt that in some of the games she could have done better but her result was overall quite acceptable. More than tiredness or lack of stamina it was the paucity of time and her time management which led to the blunders.
Judit was also very happy about the organization of the event: “It was a very nice experience for me to see the students play in this simul. I also believe that Olivier [Macard] is doing a great job organizing this event for the students annually. It is a lot of work to organise an event of this calibre.”
After the games everyone gathered in the audience room and Judit discussed some highlights of the simul
… with some contradictors from the audience: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Fressinet
The event was finally closed with a cocktail, which saw a smiling Judit answering the questions of the students and signing autographs.
If you are famous, you have to pose for selfies
Laurent Fressinet, Judit Polgar, Olivier Macard (organiser), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
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Pictures from the Facebook page of the tournament
