Szczepkowska and Rajlich win First Radzikowska Memorial

The First Women International Chess Tournament in memory of Krystyna Hołuj-Radzikowska took place in Warsaw, from 6-14 August 2011. The participants were from six different federations: Romania, Belarus, Slovakia, Belgium, Germany and Poland, and included seven WGMs: Cristina Adela Foisor, Anna Zozulia, Marta Michna, Karina Szczepkowska-Horowska (okay, it's pronounced Sh-chep-kov-skah, as Tomasz Lissowski of Warschau tells us), Anna Sharevich, Iweta Rajlich and Julia Kochetkova. There were also three young Polish players, who were invited to the tournament because they were gold and silver medalists of the National Championship under 16 and 18: Anna Iwanow, Maria Leks and Monika Gluszko. The event was intended to encourage more girls in Poland to play chess and give young players possibility to test their skills against very difficult oponents.

Here are the final standings:

Key game: Karina Szczepkowska-Horowska vs Iweta Rajlich in round five: draw in 46 moves

WGM Anna Sharevich vs IM Iweta Rajlich in round seven was a 102-move marathon draw

Marta Michna vs Monika Gluszko in round seven: 1-0 in 57 moves

Second seed IM Mihaela-Veronica Foisor, ROM, rated 2427, with a 2317 performance

WCM Maria Leks, Poland, rated 2082, with a 2179 performance

WGM Krystyna Hołuj-Radzikowska, 1931–2006

Krystyna Hołuj-Radzikowska was born on February 5th, 1931, in Lwów, and died on November 29, 2006 at the age of 75. She was a Polish WGM who won the national championship no less than nine times: 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1966, and 1969.

Krystyna tied for 15–16th at the Moscow 1955 Candidates Tournament and tied for 7–8th at the Ohrid 1971 Candidates Tournament. She played for Poland five times in the Women's Chess Olympiads:

• in 1957, at 1st board in the 1st WChOlympiad in Emmen (+9 −2 =0);
• in 1963, at 2nd board in the 2nd WChOlympiad in Split (+2 −4 =2);
• in 1966, at 1st board in the 3rd WChOlympiad in Oberhausen (+3 −6 =2);
• in 1969, at 1st board in the 4th WChOlympiad in Lublin (+3 −3 =4);
• in 1972, at 1st board in the 5th WChOlympiad in Skopje (+5 −1 =3).

Krystyna won two individual medals: gold (Emmen 1957) and bronze (Skopje 1972). She was awarded the Woman International Master title in 1955 and the WGM title in 1984.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.

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