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The International chess and games festival CZECH OPEN 2011 starts today in Pardubice, Czech Republic. Festival CZECH OPEN is a part of series of international chess festivals CZECH TOUR 2011/2012.
This year already marks the 22nd year of the festival, and there were 1445 players from 44 countries registered by June 30th including 60 GMs and WGMs, and 81 IMs and WIMs.
Participants of the festival can choose from almost 30 different types of chess tournaments, for example there are the Polgar Superstar Chess World Championship and the Fischer Random Chess event with GM Navara in the lineup, etc.
The first chess tournament of the festival is OCÉ Open – Open Championship of the Czech Republic of 4-member team. This tournament is growing every year. There are 111 teams from the Czech Republic as well as some foreign countries this year, with the top seeded team, and winner of last year, being Ukrainian Dnepr with a 2476 average Elo (GM Kononenko, GM Simantsev, GM Maximov, IM Varitski).
Two-time winner GM Korobov will sadly be missing from this year's lineup
The most important event is certainly the Pardubice Open Grandmaster tournament which is a part of the ACP World Series. This year we are missing the both two-time winners GM Korobov and GM Babula, but the starting list is still full of very interesting players – there are 18 players rated between 2550 and 2599, so we expect a serious fight for the title. An interesting thing to note is that the top seed is not Russian, but rather German GM Philipp Schlosser (2599). The second seed and actual Czech champion is GM Jiri Stocek (CZE, 2596). Among past winners we can also see in Pardubice GM Sergey Grigoriants (RUS, 2566) and GM Andrei Kovalev (BLR, 2531).
Armenian GM Sergei Movsesian has made it a point to play in the festival in the last years
At the end of the festival we expect to receive a visit from GM Sergei Movsesian (ARM, 2700). Other popular and very good players are coming to Pardubice on July 20th and 21st for the strongest event of the festival, the Vlastimil Loucek Open – Czech Rapid Championship with the participation of two top Czech players, GM David Navara (2722) and GM Viktor Laznicka (2681)!
Top Czech GM David Navara (2722) in action
Other important tournaments are the Open European Amateur Championships for under-2000 under-1800 FIDE Elo. Both start on July 22nd and 23rd.
Pardubice is a divergent city situated in the eastern part of the Czech Republic and lies on the junction of the Labe and Chrudimka rivers. The city was founded more than 700 years ago and today has over 90 thousand inhabitants. Pardubice is a city of sports, horses and gingerbread.
In the world Pardubice is famous for its Velka Pardubicka Steeplechase and the Golden Helmet race. In the city you can also find the historical first railway route from Olomouc to Prague and one of the biggest railway stations in a republic. There is also an international airport and very soon the city will be reachable by boat.
LinksThe games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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