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From 9 to 17 May the Polish Chess Federation held its 79th Open National Championship and its 74th Women's Chess Championship in Kruszwica. The tournaments were held at the same time, but had different formats as in the year before.
The Open Championship was played as a knockout tournament. 16 players took part, including almost all the top Polish players with the exception of Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who is preparing for the Candidates. Radoslaw Wojtaszek, the former second of Vishy Anand, started as the defending champion and in the round of the last 16 he clearly defeated Piotr Sabuk in with 2-0. In the quarterfinals he defeated Gregorsz Gajewski with the same result.
In the semifinals round Wojtaszek played against Woijciech Morande and had more trouble to win: after five draws he qualified for the finals by winning the second game of the blitz tiebreak.
In the final Wojtaszek faced Kacper Piorun. On his way to the final, Poirun knocked out Grzegorsz Nasuta in the round of the last 16, Pawel Teclaf in the quarterfinals and Jacek Tomczak in the semifinals, though he had to go into the play-offs in each of these matches. And in the semfinals against Tomczak Piorun only won in Armageddon.
The first game in the final ended in a draw but in the second game Wojtaszek came to a convincing victory with White, which brought him the second title in a row and the fifth national title overall.
Radoslaw Wojtaszek
A round robin with six players decided about place three. Bartosz Socko won this mini-tournament to win bronze.
Results of the knock-out tournament
The women's championship was played as a round robin with ten participants. WFM Michalina Rudzinska, number ten on the seeding list, caused a big surprise and won the title with 7.0/9, one point ahead of Monika Socko. The 20-year old secured the title with one round to go.
Michalina Rudzinska
Translation from German: Johannes Fischer
