Text: Hans-Jürgen Hochgräfe

V. Lasker Festival in Rapid Chess - Barlinek 2024

Emanuel Lasker was born in the small town of Berlinchen 150 years ago, and the German Chess Federation has declared 2018 the Lasker Year to celebrate the occasion. Berlinchen is now called Barlinek and is located in Poland. As you might expect, the person responsible for German-Polish relations was asked to arrange an event in Barlinek if possible. A rapid chess tournament was organised with the Lasker Barlinek Chess Club, taking into account financial and personnel restrictions.

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The first tournament was a huge success, with 86 participants. In subsequent years, numbers fell slightly or the tournament was cancelled completely due to the pandemic. Last year, we tried splitting the nine rounds over two days. There were still 31 players in the open tournament and 18 in the junior tournament.

The V Lasker Festival brought a few surprises. A registration stop was announced just one day before the planned closing of the registration list. The 80-person capacity of the playing hall in the ‘Haus der Begegnungen’ had already been significantly exceeded.  In fact, 45 players entered the open tournament and 37 players entered the youth tournament, including 15 from Germany and 2 from Ukraine.

After the participants had been welcomed by Barlinek's deputy mayor Krzysztof Paszek and given a greeting from DSB representative Dr Hochgräfe, tournament director Krzysztof Wolski invited the players to start their games.

Greeting: Tournament director Krzysztof Wolski, moderator Ania Adamiak, Dr. Hochgräfe, Adam Goretzki (player)

The venue

The time-limit was 12+3 and after four rounds the favourites started to show why they were the favourites. But with temperatures of 30° plus it was a tough day. The remaining rounds were completed bravely and without any personnel losses.

The award ceremony was hosted by Ms Ania Adamiak, who works at the cultural centre. She first called out the three players who came first FM Robert Kula (PL) with 7.5 points, Hans-Eckart Lüthke (SSC Graal-Müritz) and Jerzy Brok (PL) with 7 points each, to give out the prizes and certificates.

Winner's ceremony:  Tournament director Wolski congratulates H.-E. Lüthke, FM R. Kula, J. Brok

A certificate for the oldest participant

Final standings

46 players

Results at chess-manager...

The youth tournament was won by Kamil Kalita (Choszczno/PL) with 7.5 points.

Winner's ceremony U13

A big thank you to the youngest participants, who were honoured by Arkadiusz Korbal and Ania Adamiak.

FIDE arbiter Arkadiusz Korbal handled both tournament groups smoothly.