Bank Chess Festival

High-Society Chess

[04.12.2017 00:00:00] - The grand spaces of the Czech National Bank palace have been taken over this week by chess players. The Bank Chess Festival, which includes three tournaments, simuls and extraordinary exhibition of coins, was opened by the CNB´s governor, Jiri Rusnok and vice-governor Mojmir Hampl.

More than one hundred special guests participated on Tuesday gala-opening of the Bank Chess Festival. Among guests were not only top bankers, such as a membes of Komerční banka board, Petr Palečka or a member of Unicredit Bank board Aleš Barabas, but also tens of other prominent businessmen and several chess grandmasters.

In course of the evening the grandmaster Sergej Movsesjan played two simultaneously played blindfolded blitz games, the latest book of Garry Kasparov was launched, Vlastimil Chládek exhibition ´Chess Motives on Coins and Bank Notes´ was opened and awards of the Prague Chess Society were awarded. Laureates of the award were CNB governor, Jiří Rusnok, CNB vice-governor Mojmir Hampl, the best Czech chess player David Navara, the general director of EA HotelsJosef Bára and businessmen and chess benefactors Josef Mixa and Bessel Kok. Silver commemorative medals were pass to them by Pavel Trtík, the owner of Prague mint, where the silver coin was coined.

“Bank Chess Festival concludes this chess year, which was very busy, especially during an autumn period. Following June´s ČEZ CHESS TROPHY, where the best Czech chess player David Navara competed in rapid chess against the world champion Vassily Ivanchuk, during autumn we published a new book written by grandmaster Navara (My World Chess) and we organized trip with to ruins of Navarov castle, where we launched the book. We organized for the seventh time in a row Chess Train, for the eleventh time Czech-Slovak chess tournament of managers, and in addition several smaller events and now the Bank Chess Festival. ,” says chairman of Prague Chess Society, Pavel Matocha

On Wednesday a simul of grandmaster Navara against 20 rivals took place, the score being 16,5:3,5., during which Pavel Brezman from Raiffeisenbank managed to secure a draw and three employees of CNB - Jindřich Trejbal, Jiří Pilný and Pavel Štádler managed to win, making an advantage of home territory.

On Thursday at Large Hall of CNB´s Commodity Exchange the first of the three Bank Chess Festival tournaments took place. 60 chess players competed in the fifteen-round blitz tournament, which was dominated by Jan Havlík, Petr Zvára and Bodo Schmidt, who all gained 12,5 points and won the medals (in given order). The complete results here.

For the second part the festival moved to Schebek palace, where the National Bank had its seat almost a hundred year ago, just after Czechoslovakia was founded. Nowadays economist of CERGE-EI study and research here, but for this weekend that representative halls of Schebek palace is belonging to chess players. In the morning Fischer chess tournament took place here, while in the afternoon Rapid chess tournament.

Photos from Bank Chess Festival can be found here


At the opening of the festival, the grandmaster Sergej Movsesjan played two blindfolded blitz games. Even though he was blindfolded, his opponents – Jindřich Trejbal from CNB and Rober Šárovec from Komerční banka – did not stand a chance.


A simul of the best chess player, David Navara, was supervised by the vice-governor of CNB Mojmír Hampl and by the chairman of Prague Chess Society, Pavel Matocha.


The Bank Chess Festival was visited by number of prominent guests, including a former chief of Český Telecom and a grandmaster of GMA association, Bessel Kok and by Russia-Netherlands grandmaster, Genny Sosonka.

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