Bank Chess Festival

Chess Mats in Luxurious Palaces

[08.12.2017 00:00:00] - ČSOB representative won all three tournaments including Bank Chess Festival´s competition of teams. Blitz tournament was won by Jan Havlík, Fischer chess by Petr Zvára and rapid chess by Jiří Jirka. “You are not a bank, but a chess team!” the ČSOB player heard frequently during the Bank Chess Festival.

The Festival, which was opened by Czech National Bank (CNB) governor Jiří Rusnok and vice-governor Mojmír Hampl, was taking place in the beautiful halls of the Commodity Exchange and Schebek Palace. “We had not played a chess tournament in such grand halls before, “ agreed not only Czech chess players, but also players from Armenia, Germany, Norway and Great Britain, who participated on the festival.

The new project of Prague Chess Society returned chess back to central bankers’ palaces and brought the commercial bankers back to chess boards. In 1946, in the Large Hall of the Commodity Exchange, nowadays known as CNB´s Congress Centre, the famous match Prague – Moscow was played. Seventy-one years later, the chess players returned to ´crime scene´…

Sixty chess players, mostly Czech representatives of banks and insurance companies, but also bankers from other countries such as Norway, Slovakia or Great Britain, were first competing in CNB´s halls in blitz chess tournament. Despite a very dynamic style of game of Armenian chess players, the tournament was won by Jan Havlík, who beat Jiří Zvára and Bodo Schmidt. All three of them gained 12,5 points out of 15 games and they were ahead by 1,5 point from the player, who came fourth.

To play Fischer chess tournament and rapid chess tournament, the players moved to nearby Schebek palace, which used to be a seat of the Czech National Bank, at the time when the Austro – Hungarian Empire broke down and Czechoslovakia was founded. Nowadays, economists of CERGE-EI study and research here, but at the end of last week the impressive halls of Schebek palace belonged to chess players.

The Fischer chess tournament was convincingly won by Petr Zvára, who beat Jan Havlík and Oldřich Vedral. Rapid chess tournament had seen a great finale of Jiří Jirka, who managed to keep half point advantage ahead of the German chess player Bodo Schmidt. The third in rapid chess tournament came Petr Zvára, who managed to won medals in all three tournaments!

Team competition was won by ČSOB team, which was far ahead Raiffeisenbank team, Armenian bankers and CNB´s first team.

The winners were awarded not only gold, silver or bronze medals manufactured by Prague Mint (which also coins Saint Wenceslas ducats), but also luxurious Waterman pens and leather business cards cases Montblanc.


Winers






Pictures from the Bank Chess Festival here
The results of the blitz chess tournament here
The results of Fischer chess tournament here
The results of rapid chess tournament here

| Pavel Matocha | visits(4341x)