Traditionally, for the 4th year, our Polish friends organized the Polish-Hungarian Friendship Chess Tournament, with the intention to promote chess and friendship between those two countries.
The event was organized by Katowice City, Miskolc City and the Silesian Chess Association, with the help of co-organizers Chess Club „HetMaN” Katowice, Student Chess Club of the Youth Palace in Katowice and 21 Podlesie Student Chess Club.
This friendly event took place 7-8 May, 2016 at the International Congress Centre in Katowice.
The event consisted of 6 tournaments: Open Group, and Groups A to E, and attracted almost 600 players from 12 different countries.
More than 240 players took part in Open tournament, among whom 21 Grandmasters. The winner of the main tournament is GM Kacper Piorun (POL 2563) who scored 7.5 points out of 9. Second place went to GM Bartosz Soćko (POL 2688) and the third place went to GM Tamas Banusz (HUN 2551) both with 7.5 points as well.
On Friday, 6th May 2016 a 4-round match of chess representations of Poland and Hungary took place in Park Hotel Diament in Katowice.
Polish players intended to return the favor for last year’s defeat in Budapest, but the visitors twice took lead to the next round to lose them. Finally, all rounds ended with the result of 2.5-1.5 and the match was tied with 8-8.
We didn’t see a lot of tactical emotions, which resulted in only 4 decisive games. The best players in both teams proved their youngest members: Kamil Dragun (POL) and 17-years-old Benjamin Gledura (HUN), who gained 2.5 points each.
The match also was a prelude to the 4th Polish-Hungarian Friendship Chess Tournament, which took place on Saturday and Sunday.
Since the event in Katowice (southern Poland) is one of the biggest chess events in Poland, many children came to Silesia. The organizers prepared lots of attractions for them which were available whole time, during the tournament.
In 2017, Katowice will host European Blitz and Rapid Chess Championship.
More information and results can be found at www.chesscup.pl/en
