The teams of Austria in the Open section, and Hungary in Women section are the winners of Mitropa Cup 2015, which was held in Mayrhofen/Austria, 14-22 June, 2015.
The host Austria triumphed despite the loss in the final round of 3.5-0.5 against Croatia, thanks to the good games shown during the whole tournament. Second place went to Slovakia with 13 match points, and Germany came third with 12 points.
34th Mitropacup 2015 Open Section Final Standings
In Women section there were two teams who finished the tournament undefeated – the winner Hungary, and the runner-up Italy. Hungary clinched gold with 16 match points (7 wins and 2 draws), while Italy came second with 14 match points (5 wins and 4 draws).
The third place went to the team of Slovakia with 11 match points, and better tie-breaks than Germany, who also scored 11 points.
12th Mitropacup 2015 Women Section Final Standings
This year the organizer of the Mitropa Cup 2015 was the Austrian Chess Federation, and the official venue was Congress Zillertal in Mayrhofen.
In both sections the following federations took part: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland.
Each delegation consisted of 4 players + a reserve player in Open section, and 2 players + one reserve player in Women section. Both tournaments were played as Round Robin ones, with time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes to finish the game with 30 seconds increment for each move starting from one.
All the games were broadcast live on the official website, and the organizers provided live commentary in cooperation with ChessBase.
History of Mitropa Cup
The Chess-Mitropacup was invented by the Austrian International Arbiter Gertrude Wagner. She and her husband organized many tournaments. Gertrude Wagner and Karl Wagner were known as the only married couple of arbiters. Together with Kurt Jungwirth, the president of the Austrian Chess Federation, they did many big improvements for chess in Austria and some international too.
The Idea to the Mitropacup came from Gertrude Wagner. She wanted to create a tournament for teams in the middle of Europe like it was usual in soccer. Jungwirth realized the prospects of this idea and said: “Ok, let´s organize a mitropacup”.
The first Mitropacup was held 1976 in Innsbruck. Germany, Austria, Jugoslavia, Switzerland, Italy and Luxembourg were pariticipating. Austria and Yugoslavia with two teams. Germany won this first tournament. The next twenty Mitropacups were organized by Gertrude Wagner. Till 2004 Jugoslavia won 7 tournaments, Germany 6, Hungary 3, 2 wins go to France, Croatia and Slovenia. Austria was successful in 1977.
10 Federations participate actually in the Mitropacup and share the organization. 2005 the Mitropacup comes back “home” and was held in Steinfeld/Neubrunn in Austria. A new era started in the history of this big tournament. The 24th Mitropacup was organized the first time for men and women.