Milan Petras wins Solving Championship at Prague Chess Festival

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
3/9/2025 – The Prague International Chess Festival offers a wide variety of events, catering to both competitive players and chess enthusiasts. Among them is the problem-solving competition, which was held for the second time on 28 February. Milan Petras won the event, scoring 55 points, ahead of Dimitra Amiridou and Sahib Hasanzada. A notable feature of this year's competition was that all positions were curated by renowned chess composer Yochanan Afek, adding an extra layer of prestige to the challenge. | Photo: Petr Vrabec

ChessBase 18 - Mega package ChessBase 18 - Mega package

Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.

More...

Positions curated by Yochanan Afek

The Prague International Chess Festival is a true celebration of the game, offering a wide range of events catering to different formats and playing styles. In addition to the traditional Masters, Challengers, Futures, Open, Rapid and Blitz tournaments, the festival includes unique competitions such as Basque Chess, Fischer Random, Pair Blitz, Bughouse and a Chess Solving competition. This diversity ensures that players and enthusiasts of all interests find engaging opportunities to participate.

On Friday, 28 February 2025, the festival hosted the solving competition. Milan Petras won the event with a score of 55 points, while Dimitra Amiridou from Greece secured second place with 50 points. Sahib Hasanzada from Azerbaijan finished in third place with 43 points.

A distinguishing feature of this year's competition was that all positions were curated by Yochanan Afek, the legendary Israeli Grandmaster in Chess Composition, adding prestige to the event.

This was the second time the solving competition was included in the Prague Festival, as participants had the unique opportunity to tackle problems composed by Afek. The challenge consisted of solving seven positions within a 90-minute time limit, with a maximum possible score of 65 points. Prize winners received material rewards for their performances, making the experience even more rewarding.

See all problems below...

Interview with Yochanan Afek for ChessBase India

Photo gallery

All photos by Petr Vrabec

Petr Boleslav

Chief organiser Petr Boleslav hands the prizes to tournament winner Milan Petras

Dimitra Amiridou

Dimitra Amiridou finished second with 50 points

Sahib Hasanzada

Sahib Hasanzada finished third with 43 points

Yochanan Afek

Yochanan Afek sharing the instructions

Prague Chess Festival 2025

Solvers getting ready

Prague Chess Festival 2025

Time to solve!

Prague Chess Festival 2025

Solvers of all ages are welcome to participate

The problems

If you wish to evaluate your performance with a clock, this is what you need to know.

Total time to solve: 90 minutes.

  1. In the mate-in-two problems, diagrams 1-3, the key (first move by White) is sufficient for a complete solution.
  2. In the mate-in-three problems, diagrams 4-5, the key (the first move by White) and all variations against the threat with White's second move are sufficient for a complete solution.
  3. In the endgame studies, diagrams 6-7, the main lines until an evident win or draw are sufficient for a complete solution.

Click here for the solutions...

Links


Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
Discussion and Feedback Submit your feedback to the editors