
Report by tournament director GM Adrian Mikhalchishin
Rogaška Slatina (German: Rohitsch-Sauerbrunn) is famous for its curative mineral
water, spa and crystal glass. For centuries the curative mineral water, rich
in magnesium, the picturesque countryside and other local attractions have drawn
visitors to the area. Roman inscriptions referring to the spa waters have been
found.
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The Grand Hotel in Rogaška Slatina. Here are some impressions of the
town, sent to us in
2009 by the German GM Uwe Bönsch:





This final picture is of Hotel Sava, the venue of the Mitropacup 2009
Rogaska Slatina is fighting for its place as a center of European chess centre.
Since 1990s the Vidmar Memorial was held here, the Slovenian Leagues, the National
Youth Championship, and last year the European
Club Cup. European players soon discovered the fantastic values of this
beautiful place – mountains air, thermal baths, fantastic food and the
most important – the well-known healing water! The resort is nowadays
completely full, with most of the visitors Italians and Russians.A hundred years
ago the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef the Second was spending summers
here, as was the great Hungarian grandmaster Geza Maroczy. So all conditions
for veterans were well prepared, and they felt at home in the venue. Organizers
prepared excursions, lessons of the FIDE Trainers Commission Chairman IGM Adrian
Mikhalchishin, and a visit to the famous Rogaska glass factory, which had supplied
the organizers with beatifull crystal prizes for the winners of the tournament.
GM Hans Hecht of Germany went on a special trip by car, visiting small historical
towns like Ptuj, a 2000-year-old Roman camp base.

Wine tasting – with some of the famous red and white Slovenian wines
The tournament was played in marvelous Crystal Hall, where the great Akiba
Rubinstein played his last tournament win in first International tournament
in Slovenia in 1927! A few years ago the European Individual Seniors Championship
was conducted here, but players did not appear in masses. The winner was the
late legendary Russian GM Vitaly Tseshkovsky.

The Crystal Hall, where the games were played

A round of the Seniors Championship under way

Teams of four players facing each other
This time there were 46 teams at the start, one of them, the Russian women’s
team with the current World Women’s Senior Champion Galina Strutinskaya
and the legendary WGM Elena Fatalibekova, daughter of the former World Champion
Olga Rubzova. All together 220 players, among others and first of all the great
Victor Lvovich Korchnoi, former candidate Wolfgang Uhlmann, former World Correspondence
Champions Joern Sloth and Fritz Baumbach, grandmasters like Evgeny Vasjukov,
Hekki Westerinen, Stefano Tatai, Sergio Mariotti and many others . GM Bozidar
Ivanovic from Montenegro was a Minister of Sport of his country a few years
ago – the highest position of a chess grandmaster in civil life! The oldest
participant was 85-year-old Austrian IM Andreas Dukistein, who beat Mikhail
Botvinnik in a game 60 years ago!

Round nine, with GM Evgeni Vasiukov leading the winners Russia 1

In round four Viktor Korchnoi suffered his only defeat, against Evgeni Vasiukov

WGM Ludmila Saunina, rated 2300, drew IM Nikolay Monin, 2332, in round nine
Why are seniors’ championships so important? Old players love chess
tremendously – they analyse the games massively, hours after the rounds,
often until midnight. They don’t use computers for preparation and enjoy
chess in fantastic old-fashioned way.

Analysing in the sun on the balcony
The soul of the European Seniors organization is IM Per Ofstad from Norway.
Northern countries seriously support senior activities and have their own Senior
Championship.
Chess is also very important for seniors for social reasons, and very useful
to fight Alzheimer, as recent medical research has shown. It seems that the
chess community has not fully succeeded in explaining to government agencies
the importance of chess not just for the youth, but for seniors first and foremost.
For these reasons the FIDE Trainers Commission is fighting to make Seniors
competition more important and to introduce a separate category from 50 to 60
years, to attract former top GMs to participate, and in addition to introduce
a Super-Senior category for players over 70 years.
From the sporting point of view the clear favourites were the Russians, with
their Veterans Commission chairman GM Evgeny Vasiukov. But it appeared that
more teams , like St.Petersburg, Montenegro and Germany made the favourite’s
fate unclear right until the end. But in the end they triumphed
Final ranking after nine rounds
Rk. |
SNo |
Team |
+ |
= |
– |
TB1 |
TB2 |
TB3 |
1 |
1 |
Russia 1 |
6 |
3 |
0 |
15 |
25.0 |
185.0 |
2 |
3 |
Russia-Saint Petersburg |
6 |
3 |
0 |
15 |
22.5 |
184.0 |
3 |
4 |
Montenegro |
5 |
4 |
0 |
14 |
23.0 |
186.5 |
4 |
6 |
Switzerland |
5 |
2 |
2 |
12 |
22.0 |
187.5 |
5 |
8 |
Italy 1 |
5 |
2 |
2 |
12 |
21.0 |
189.0 |
6 |
7 |
Denmark 1 |
5 |
2 |
2 |
12 |
20.5 |
173.0 |
7 |
9 |
Germany - Hessen |
5 |
1 |
3 |
11 |
21.5 |
166.5 |
8 |
13 |
Spain - Catalonia |
5 |
1 |
3 |
11 |
21.5 |
163.0 |
9 |
10 |
Russia 2 |
5 |
1 |
3 |
11 |
20.5 |
174.5 |
10 |
11 |
Finland 1 |
3 |
5 |
1 |
11 |
20.5 |
167.5 |
11 |
12 |
Sweden 1 |
5 |
1 |
3 |
11 |
19.5 |
170.0 |
12 |
19 |
Austria - Steiermark 1 |
5 |
1 |
3 |
11 |
19.5 |
166.0 |
13 |
14 |
Austria - Wien 1 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
11 |
19.0 |
185.0 |
14 |
17 |
England 1 |
5 |
1 |
3 |
11 |
19.0 |
171.5 |
15 |
16 |
Norway 1 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
11 |
18.5 |
184.0 |
16 |
5 |
Austria 1 |
4 |
2 |
3 |
10 |
20.5 |
156.0 |
17 |
2 |
Germany 1 |
5 |
0 |
4 |
10 |
19.5 |
187.0 |
18 |
43 |
Belgium |
4 |
2 |
3 |
10 |
19.0 |
161.5 |
19 |
22 |
England 2 |
4 |
2 |
3 |
10 |
19.0 |
152.5 |
20 |
23 |
Germany-Cc Oberursel |
4 |
2 |
3 |
10 |
19.0 |
152.5 |
A fierce fight for the best result on board one was decided in favour of the
great legend Victor Korchnoi, who scored 7.5 points out of nine games. Second
was GM Evgeny Vasiukov with 6.5 out of eight, winning a crucial game against
Korchnoi. A fantastic result on the first board was showed by World Women’s
Seniors Champion WIGM Galina Strutinskaya, who scored 6.0/ 8.
There were, of course, a few funny stories, as when one of the player was
watching another game when his false teeth fell on the board and gobbled up
some pawns, as in the pacman computer game! There were a lot of excursions ,
communication among the old friends – so the seniors were extremely satisfied
with friendly resort of Rogaska Slatina.
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