Poland makes history at Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities
The Polish team won all six matches in Belgrade and took their first Olympic gold in chess since 1930. IPCA got the silver, and the Philippines won the bronze Like many times during the 20th century, the Serbian capital Belgrade was a place where (again) chess history had been made, as players with disabilities showed their chess skills on a global stage in a first-ever Olympiad dedicated to them. The inaugural event celebrating diversity and competition has been a milestone moment for chess. During the past six days, 26 teams with participants from 33 countries competed for the title. Poland achieved huge success as the team led by GM Marcin Tazbir confidently won the Olympiad, defeating all of their opponents and scoring 12 match points. The team of Physically disabled chess players (IPCA) won second place with 10 match points. Four teams: the Philipines, India, Serbia 1 and Uzbekistan, shared third to sixth place with eight match points. The cheerful squad of the Philipines came in third after a better tie-break. Croatia – who had a bad start to the tournament – finished seventh, while second-seed Israel finished eighth and third-seed Hungary took the modest 9th place. Poland’s Marcin Tazbir: “A great success for our country and our chess society” Marcin Tazbir is visually impaired. He started losing his eyesight when he was 16. He was already a good player, an IM, by that point. He had a demanding role in this event, playing board one in all matches (winning two games and drawing four). “I believe that people in our country will say this is a great success. Poland has medals from the Olympiads but before the [Second World] war. So, this type of event is also a great success for our country and our chess society”, Marcin Tazibir said in an interview for FIDE. The Polish team was the favourite to win. They had the highest average ELO (2327) and proved their status in every match. Poland’s journey to the top started with a 3:1 victory over Germany in the first round. In Round 2, they narrowly defeated the team IPCA (2,5:1,5) and then crushed the international team of FIDE 3,5:0,5. They then defeated the Philippines (2,5:1,5) and India (3:1). In the last round, the Poles were up against their biggest rivals in this event – Israel. Despite having an average lower rating than Poland, Israel (2171), led by Grandmaster Yehuda Gruenfeld, put on a strong performance and – with India and IPCA – were always in the race for the top place. One of the heroes of the Polish team is FM Marcin Molenda (pictured below), who played on board two. Molenda had an amazing score of 5,5 out of six, drawing just one game in the last round against Israel. Poland’s team was a class above anyone else. Out of 24 games played, they won 17,5 points! Altogether, the Polish team lost just three games! “I strongly believe that this event is a great opportunity for people with disabilities to feel the atmosphere of the Olympiad and a great event… To be able to come together, play and compete is something special for all of us and a great chance to overcome our limits,” Tazbir said. The foundation of future Olympiads for people with disabilities Grandmaster Thomas Luther had a pivotal role in making the first Chess Olympiad for people with disabilities happen. As the head of the FIDE Commission for people with disabilities, Luther and his team worked hard to get attention and support from across the chess world. “I’m very happy! We worked on this for such a long time, and finally, we have done it. Successfully! This event is the foundation of future Olympiads for people with disabilities, and I am so proud and happy to have taken part in this”. Pulling everything together and organising the event wasn’t easy. “There were many challenges and questions about the event”, Luther noted. “Do we need this event? Will it be successful? Will people accept it? Will the players come? Will there be exceptional difficulties…? But all went very fine and smoothly. We are looking forward to making the next Olympiad happen – we will increase the participation of countries and use the lessons learnt in Belgrade to improve.” Speaking about how he will remember the past six days in Belgrade, Luther said: “I will remember Belgrade as a very special place. So much chess history is tied to Belgrade and Serbia. Now, another piece of chess history is made in this beautiful country. We are very grateful to everyone here in Serbia who were working so hard to make this event a success.” The closing ceremony: “One special dream has come true” The closing ceremony of the first Chess Olympiad for people with disabilities took place at 7 PM, in the same hall of the Crown Plaza hotel where the matches were played over the past six days. Present at the ceremony were high-ranking officials of the City of Belgrade, as well as the deputy chairperson of the Management Board of FIDE, Dana Reizniece-Ozola and FIDE Special Tasks Director, Akaki Iashvili. “This is a very special moment. They say that a true dream is not the one you leave when the morning comes, but the one that fills in every living moment of yours… One special dream has come true,” Dana Reizniece-Ozola said. “We are extremely proud to have managed to organise this Olympiad! FIDE would like to thank the sponsors – the Serbian Government, the Serbian energy giant NIS, Coca-Cola, Rossety, the Serbian Chess Federation, the arbiters, volunteers and everyone else involved for playing a huge role in making this event happen and for making it a huge success.” Reizniece-Ozola applauded the FIDE Commission for people with disabilities as well as other organisations and federation members working in this field. “I am grateful to them for being agile and for providing honest feedback and helpful suggestions on how to make future Olympiads and events for people with disabilities even better.” She noted that in the
2023 1st FIDE Players with Disabilities Commission meeting: Minutes
FIDE publishes the Minutes of the 2023 1st FIDE Players with Disabilities Commission meeting, which was held on February 3 in Belgrade, Serbia. Download Minutes of the Meeting
FIDE Players with Disabilities Commission holds meeting in Belgrade
During the penultimate fifth round of the first FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities, one of the most active FIDE Commissions and the organizing force behind this significant event in chess life held its meeting. Members, councillors, and friends of the Players with Disabilities Commission (DIS) gathered in Crowne Plaza Hotel on February 3, 2023, in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Some of the players participating in the Chess Olympiad joined the meeting to contribute their ideas and provide feedback. In 2023, DIS Commission welcomed 11 new members, seven of them were in attendance and presented new approaches related to chess players with disabilities. One of the main topics of discussion was the ongoing Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities, the flagman tournament of the commission. This tournament is held for the first time, and this presents a unique learning opportunity. Taking into account the current experience of organizers and players, changes were proposed for future editions of the event. The Commissions will take into consideration all proposals. One of the main aims is to accommodate the certain needs that different disabilities present and do it in the best possible way. The system for team registration shall be improved too. To facilitate this process, it is proposed that every National Chess Federation appoints a point-of-contact officer who can provide support specifically for chess players with disabilities and register their team in cooperation with any local organizations for such players. GM Thomas Luther, DIS Chairman, and Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Deputy Chair of FIDE Management Board The commission has great plans for the future. Later this year, in August, it aims to organize the Individual World Championship for People with Disabilities. The Polish Chess Federation is interested in hosting the event and has submitted a bid which is now going through the necessary procedures. Another 2023 initiative is to organize the workshop “Equal Opportunities” and “Sensitivity Seminars”. The latter is a new idea introduced by DIS member James Infiesto, who offered to volunteer and assist. In sharing his experience with these types of seminars in his country, he provides a valuable contribution to the DIS Commission. The Sensitivity Seminar will focus on talks and lectures dedicated to various disabilities, all in one venue. The goal of this seminar is to improve understanding and interaction between chess players with different disabilities — a chance to better understand the needs of others when attending events like the Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities. “We want to do our part in helping provide better conditions and equal opportunities in chess for players with disabilities. We are on the right track, but there is still a long road ahead of us. The Olympiad for People with Disabilities, organized every two years, will be our event to connect, inform, celebrate and educate the chess world on the needs of chess players with disabilities,” were the words with which Nikos Kalesis, DIS Secretary, finished his report on the meeting. In attendance were: DIS Chair, GM Thomas Luther (Germany), Secretary Nikolaos Kalesis (Greece), Kema Goryaeva, Councillor Dora Martinez (USA), Councillor James Infiesto (Philippines), Member Serpil Turgay Seckin (Turkey), Member Handenur Sahin who is playing on Board 1 for Team Turkey, Member Natasha Morales Santos (Puerto Rico) who is also playing in Team FIDE, Member Dominique Dervieux (France), Member Rahman Mallick Masudur (Bangladesh), Phillip K Gardner (England), Member Piotr Dukaczewski (Poland), Member Tapiwa Gora, Member Andrei Gurbanov, Ewa Kamierczak. You can download the Minutes of the Meeting here. Photos by Mark Livshitz
WGP Munich: Kosteniuk takes the lead
Alexandra Kosteniuk is the early leader of the Munich leg of the 2023 Women’s Grand Prix after scoring her second consecutive win this afternoon against local player Elisabeth Paehtz. Playing under the FIDE flag, Kosteniuk took advantage of an unexpected blunder by her opponent and makes her claim for the tournament title. Nonetheless, three players – Tan Zhongyi, Anna Muzychuk and Nana Dzagnidze – are just behind the leader, on one and a half points. The ceremonial first move, played on the Paehtz-Kosteniuk board, was made by Dr Peer Friess, representing the Bavarian State Chancellery. Being a strong club player himself, rated 1895 FIDE, Friess had no trouble at all advancing Paehtz’s e-pawn to e4. Kashlinskaya, Alina vs Tan, Zhongyi (0,5-0,5) The first game to finish ended in a solid draw. They had previously played nine games with an overall score of 5.5-3.5 in favour of the Chinese player. Although Tan Zhongyi went for the Sicilian defence, the position transposed to the Advance Variation of the French. Kashlinskaya had prepared an interesting pawn sacrifice (8.Re1!?) which Tan Zhongyi declined after a few minutes of thought. White insisted and ultimately achieved some positional compensation for the pawn. With her king still stranded in the centre, Tan Zhongyi intelligently preferred to return the extra pawn and exchange queens in an attempt to steer the game towards the ending. After mass exchanges, both players agreed to a draw on move thirty-one. This a good result for the Chinese player, who rapidly returned to her room to participate in the preliminary stage of the Online Champions Chess Tour! Paehtz, Elisabeth — Kosteniuk, Alexandra (0-1) One of the most interesting match-ups of the day. These two players have a long-playing history, with more than 72 games against each other, according to my database (43-29 for Kosteniuk). Paehtz opened the game with the Evans Gambit, a bold choice for this type of event but very much in the aggressive style of German’s number one female player. Kosteniuk came to the game well-prepared: she had practiced this variation previously in blitz. However, with everything to play for, on move 23, Paehtz developed her bishop to the unprotected f4 square. Kosteniuk couldn’t believe her eyes, but didn’t take long to capture the bishop with her rook, forcing her opponent to resign. “Today’s game finished unexpectedly because apparently she just blundered,” Kosteniuk explained in her post-game interview with Press Officer IM Michael Rahal. “The e8 square was a blind spot for her”. Zhu, Jiner – Dronavalli Harika (0.5-0.5) A complicated battle. Both players ended up in a position which probably neither of them had planned to be in before the game. Zhu Jiner achieved the middlegame advantage of two connected passed pawns on the sixth and seventh ranks, a force to be reckoned with. In exchange, Harika obtained a couple of extra pawns which, going into the ending, might prove to be decisive. After missing a couple of solid opportunities to increase her advantage, Zhu Jiner went for a forced line that won a piece but only left her with the option of forcing a perpetual due to the lack of material. “Will I play this tricky line again in the future? I will keep that as a secret. I didn’t expect to land into this position, so it will be a good experience for the future” said Harika with a smile on her face in her post-game interview. Humpy Koneru – Abdumalik, Zhansaya (0.5-0.5) What a rollercoaster of a game! I am sure that neither of the players can be completely satisfied with the end result. The opening and middlegame were all Humpy. Her two bishops on a2 and b2, pointing in the direction of her opponent’s king, should have proven decisive – the engine suggests 24.Bxf6 as the beginning of a winning variation. However, low on time, Humpy blundered the exchange, and Abdumalik turned the tables. By move 50, she had an extra rook, and it looked like Humpy would have to resign very soon. But India’s number one female player bravely fought on, advancing her three connected passed pawns. Unable to find a way to win, a draw was agreed on move 75, just before Abdumalik would have been forced to give up her extra pieces for the pawns. Dzagnidze, Nana – Muzychuk, Mariya (0.5-0.5) A missed opportunity for the younger of the Muzychuk sisters. Dzagnidze sacrificed a pawn in the opening for active piece play, and an attack on the king but Mariya defended with precision and netted another two pawns deep into the middlegame. With three extra pawns, things were looking very grim for Dzagnidze, but in time trouble, Mariya blundered most of her advantage with 36…Nd6 (36…Ra8 was the way to go) and Dzagnidze got back into the game, recovering two of the pawns and holding a queen ending to a draw. Wagner, Dinara – Muzychuk, Anna (0-1) One of the most exciting games of the round. Wagner went all out for the win today with enterprising and aggressive play. She could have rounded off an excellent game by finding 34.Qe6+! exchanging queens, with a completely won rook ending. But once again, time trouble came into play. Wagner blundered with 34.d6? dropping a full pawn – Black quickly snatched it after 34…Qc6+ 35. Re4 Qxd6. Anna correctly rejected her opponent’s draw offer, understanding that the tide had turned. Maybe the queen ending could have been played better – the engines suggest that 66.Kg1 (instead of 66.Kh2) is a table-base draw – but low on time, this type of ending is typically very hard to defend. The third round will be played on Saturday, February 4th at 3pm at the Kempinski Hotel venue. The games can be followed live with commentary by GM Stefan Kindermann and WIM Veronika Exler on the FIDE Youtube channel. Standings after Round 2: Text: IM Michael Rahal (Munich, Germany) Photos: David Llada Official website: womengrandprix.fide.com/ Partners:
Olympiad for People with Disabilities: Poland one step away from the gold
Poland defeated their direct competitor for first place, India, and are one round away from clinching gold at the first Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities As the event in Belgrade nears its end, key games on top boards are getting longer, and tiredness is starting to kick in. While this is usual in any tournament, for some of the participants of the first Olympiad for People with Disabilities, this can be particularly hard because of their health. Uzbekistan’s board number one, Sirojiddin Zaynidinov and Hungary’s Zoltan Zambo spent nearly six hours playing their round five game – a strain that even the elite chess players would find challenging to manage. Given the various types and levels of health issues players with disabilities have, there is a special health team dedicated to looking after them. Does having a disability make it harder to play chess? The medical perspective Dr Sofija Jovanovic is the Medical Doctor of the Olympiad, and she is in charge of looking after the health and well-being of all the participants. She says that the quantity of attention paid to the general health status of the players with disabilities is larger than in regular events. “We have a finer line to meet here”. Dr Jovanovic notes that because of their disabilities, the players are well in tune with their health conditions, and they take good care of the rest of themselves, which makes things easier. “We don’t have large health problems here. We have a disability we try to match in every area of the competition: so, we have the volunteers who are helping them play chess, and we have people who are supported in all other areas.” In terms of health issues that have most commonly come up – “it’s headaches, flu symptoms, and nose bleeds. Here, however, we have to be extra careful with the symptomatology as it might correlate with something bigger,” notes Dr Jovanovic. However, the players can sometimes overreact: “It’s refreshing to see someone so in tune with their health. At the same time, it’s also a bit overbearing, but sometimes a headache is just a headache”. Medicine highlights the benefits of cognitive challenges such as doing sudoku, crosswords and anything of that variety. It also notes the value of competitive sports for general well-being. Chess is the overlap of these two spheres. “Different studies show that being part of a competitive sport – no matter your health, gender, ethnicity background – is going to help you deal with personal loss or defeat in sports or other things you will have to overcome in life later on”, dr Jovanovic notes. Can spending too much time on chess be bad for your health? “It depends”, the doctor says. “It depends on what else you can do with your free time and how you prefer to spend it. Some prefer cognitive over physical or vice versa. You’re not supposed to ignore your health, of course.” You can watch the full interview with Dr Sofija Jovanovic – here. Games and results of Round Five The penultimate round brought four key matches between the leading teams: Poland (8) – India (7), Philippines (6) – Israel (6), Cuba (6) – IPCA (6), and Uzbekistan (6) – Hungary (5). The rise of Asian chess has been visible in their results so far, exceeding rating predictions, but in the 5th round, they had to pass the most challenging tests against the top three favourites: Poland, Israel and Hungary. For the encounter with the Polish leaders, the Indian selection opted to have Soundarya Kumar Pradhan (1881), the lowest-rated member of the team, against the GM Marcin Tazbir (2.507), the strongest player in the Belgrade field. Such an experiment worked well in the second round match vs Cuba (3:1), thanks to all three wins on lower boards, but this time the Polish players had a significant advantage in rating even against the most successful Indian players – Shashikant Kutwai (3.5 points out of 4 games), Kishan Gangolli (4) and Naveen Kumar (two out of three). As it might have been expected, Marcin Tazbir was the first one to score. Black was desperately low on time and in a weaker position. Tazibir used his advantage and, with a nice sacrifice, went for the mating attack: 27.Nf6+ gxg6 28.exf6 Kf8 29.Qg5 Qb7 30.Qg7+ Ke8 31.Qg8+ Kd7 32.Qxf7+ Kd6 33.Be5+ Kc6 34.Rc1+ Kb6 33.Bd4+ Nc5 34.Bxc5+ and Black resigned. The most anticipated game was on the second board, between two players who collected together 7.5/8. Disturbed by the loss on the first board, Shashikant Kutwal missed the right plan (30.h4 Bh6 31.Nd6) in the sharp tactical battle, and the advantage instantly went to the other side: 30.Rxe8+ Qxe8 31.h4 Bh6 32.Nd6 Qe3 33.Nxf7 Kxf7 34.Rd8 Qc1+ 35.Qe1 Qxb2 36.Rf8+ Kg6 37.h5+ Kxh5 38.Qd1+ Kg6 39.Qg4+ Bg5 40.Rh8 f5 41.Qx3 Qxb4, and the Polish FM Marcin Molenda celebrated his 5th consecutive win, the same as his team did (3:1) after peaceful outcomes were signed on the lower boards. After the most important win in this Olympiad, the team Poland leads two match points ahead of the squad of the International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPCA). The two teams met in the 2nd round when Poland celebrated a close win 2.5:1.5, but the race isn’t over yet. The 7th seeded IPCA got into the last round with another surprise, a very convincing victory against Cuba 3.5:0.5 that keeps their hope for gold alive. If they win and Poland loses their last match, the IPCA team will have a clear advantage in the first tiebreak criteria, the number of board points (at the moment, it is equal – 14.5:14.5). The match Cuba – IPCA was the most balanced one in average rating, with slight advantages of each team on separate boards. However, IPCA won without a single defeat, with the half point earned by Stanislav Mikheev (Serbia) and the wins of Sargis Sargissyan (Armenia), Eugenio Campos (Angola) and Artom Andriienko (Ukraine). In another derby of the fifth round, Israel was a clear favourite on the 2nd and 3rd