Wojtaszek and Rudzinska win Polish Championship 2022
GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek and WFM Michalina Rudzinska are the new Polish Champions. The 79th LOTTO Polish Championship in the open and women’s sections took place from May 9-17, 2022, in the old town Kruszwica. Just like a year before, the tournaments were played in different formats. The open event was a 16-player knockout tournament, which attracted the best Polish players, except Jan-Krzysztof Duda, preparing for the Candidates. The defending champion Radoslaw Wojtaszek cruised to the semifinals, where he clashed with the last-year finalist Wojciech Moranda. After the draws in classical and rapid games, Radoslaw prevailed in the second blitz encounter and reached the final to play for the title with Kasper Piorun. Kasper had a thorny path to the final, defeating Pawel Teclaf in Armageddon in the quarterfinals and beating Jacek Tomczak in blitz in the semis. After making a quick draw with black in the first game of the final, Wojtaszek won the second encounter in style and clinched his second straight national title and the fifth overall. Bartosz Socko won a six-player playoff round-robin tournament and claimed bronze. The women’s event, a 10-player round-robin, produced an entirely unexpected outcome. The lowest-rated participant WFM Michalina Rudzinska made a real splash winning the title with a round to spare. The 20-year old WFM from Suwalki beat all the main favourites and picked up 79 rating points. Monica Socko scored an important victory in the final round and took silver. Julia Antolak tied for the third place with Maria Malicka but claimed bronze thanks to better tiebreaks. Final standings: 1 WFM Rudzinska, Michalina 2236 7 2 GM Socko, Monika 2384 6 3 WGM Antolak, Julia 2371 5½ 4 FM Malicka, Maria 2377 5½ 5 WIM Kiolbasa, Oliwia 2375 5 6 WGM Zawadzka, Jolanta 2409 4½ 7 IM Kulon, Klaudia 2305 4 8 WGM Majdan, Joanna 2325 3 9 IM Cyfka, Karina 2404 2½ 10 WIM Kubicka, Anna 2245 2 Offcial website: mp2022.pzszach.pl/ Photo: Polski Związek Szachowy Facebook page
Chess and brain ageing
During the past months, we have brought to our social media channels the story of Manuel Alvarez Escudero, from Madrid. Born in 1921, Manuel is still very much an active player who, at 100 years and six months old, is rated 1627. He just took part in this season’s regional league with his club, where, despite starting off with a victory, he ended up losing a few rating points. To put things in perspective, Manuel was born in the year Jose Raul Capablanca became World Champion, and his life encompasses the greater part of modern chess history. Manuel also recently got some airtime in the Spanish media, which presented him as an example of active ageing. We all could name some other examples of chess personalities who demonstrated remarkable intellectual longevity. The beneficial effect of chess in delaying brain ageing and cognitive impairment (and therefore, Alzheimer and other types of dementia) is supported by relevant scientific studies and statistics. With all this in mind, a group of entrepreneurs and chess promoters from Spain have recently developed a chess-based cognitive training program in the form of a mobile application that they named Gymchess. The founders of this interesting project are Leontxo Garcia, chess journalist and science communicator, Juan Antonio Montero, psychologist and a world-class authority on the topic of therapeutic applications of chess and Asier Rufino, CEO of Tecnalia Ventures, Chairman and Board member in several deep-tech spin-offs, as well as a Professor at the prestigious Deusto Business School. The chess-based cognitive training program is based on the amp experience gathered by Juan Antonio Montero in multiple face-to-face workshops with more than 3,500 users over the last ten years with the support of the regional government of the Extremadura region in Spain. This allowed him to develop a methodology (ECAM) that has been applied to create Gymchess, with the ultimate goal of improving the cognitive system and slowing down the effects of brain ageing, serving as a complement to people conscious of their personal well-being and mental health. Users don’t need to have any prior chess knowledge or even know how the chess pieces move to start using and benefiting from the app. The Gymchess app was presented in the Spanish Pavilion at Expo Dubai last December, during the World Championship Match, with the presence, among others, of its founders and Teresa Riesgo, Secretary-General of Innovation at the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain. The technological start-up is supported by the Basque Government and the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa. If you are aware of any similar initiative involving chess for seniors and active ageing, please contact FIDE’s Social Commission at socialchess@fide.com.
IPCA World Championship 2022: Andrei Obodchuk clinches title
IM Andrei Obodchuk (FIDE) emerged as the winner of the 21st World IPCA Chess Championship for Disabled Players organized by Israeli Chess Federation and IPCA (International Physically Disabled Chess Association – Affiliated to the International Chess Federation, FIDE). The 9-round Swiss tournament in Ashdod City (Israel) brought together 24 players from eight countries. Obodchuk (pictured above) took a great start, winning four games in a row, but in Round 5, he suffered a painful defeat in the game against IM Andrei Gurbanov (Israel) after mishandling a won position. Unfazed, Obodchuk scored 2½/3 in the next three games and came to the final round a half-point ahead of IM Stanislav Mikheev of Serbia. The leader took matters into his own hands, beat Benny Shapiro with black pieces and clinched the title with an excellent score of 7½/9. Stanislav Mikheev (pictured below) finished just a half-point behind the champion and claimed silver. GM Yaacov Zilberman and Andrei Gurbanov tied for the third place, netting 6½/9 each, but the bronze goes to the former thanks to a slightly better Buchholz. WFM Svetlana Gerasimova (FIDE) netted 4½/9 and became the best woman player. Aleksandra Aleksandrova of Israel scored an equal amount of points but had inferior tiebreaks. Final standings: 1 IM Obodchuk, Andrei FID 2306 7½ 2 IM Mikheev, Stanislav SRB 2333 7 3 GM Zilberman, Yaacov ISR 2323 6½ IM Gurbanov, Andrei ISR 2301 6½ 5 IM Yarmonov, Igor UKR 2394 6 6 IM Campos, Eugenio ANG 2247 5 7 FM Lipilin, Ilia FID 2174 5 8 Srimskov, Elishar ISR 1992 5 9 Shapiro, Benny ISR 1899 5 10 FM Vit Vaclav, Valenta CZE 1999 5 11 Babanov, Aleksandr FID 1918 4½ 12 WFM Gerasimova, Svetlana FID 1906 4½ In addition to cups, medals and diplomas, the top-6 finishers received won prizes from €300 to €1,000. There were also three special money prizes for women. The winners (open, women and players in wheelchairs) gained the spots in the IPCA team at the Chess Olympiad 2022. Official website: ipca.chess.org.il/ Photo: Mark Livshitz