David Navara and Julia Movsesian are the new chess champions of the Czech Republic.
The Open and Women’s Czech championships organized by the Světlá nad Sázavou Chess Club and Šachový svaz České republiky (Czech Chess Federation) took place from May 9-17 in the conference hall of the Skalský Dvůr hotel in Lísk. The events were held concurrently but in different formats. The open competition was a 10-player round-robin, while the women’s championship was a knock-out tournament with a single preliminary round followed by the quarterfinals, semifinals and final.
GM David Navara turned in a dominant performance in the open event and claimed his twelfth national title with a round to spare. The current Czech number one scored an impressive 7.5/9 and became the only unbeaten player in the competition.
The fight for the silver was much closer, with the second-youngest participant, IM Tomáš Kraus and GM Vlastimil Babula, coming into the final round tied for the second position. Kraus pulled out a crucial victory over the 2021 champion Vojtěch Plát and secured second place, as Babula managed only a draw against Navara with the black pieces and had to settle for bronze.
Final standings Open:
|
1 |
GM |
Navara, David |
2678 |
7½ |
|
2 |
IM |
Kraus, Tomáš |
2473 |
6 |
|
3 |
GM |
Babula, Vlastimil |
2533 |
5½ |
|
4 |
GM |
Krejčí, Jan |
2517 |
5 |
|
5 |
GM |
Štoček, Jiří |
2525 |
5 |
|
6 |
GM |
Šimáček, Pavel |
2466 |
3½ |
|
7 |
IM |
Zwardoń, Vojtěch |
2494 |
3½ |
|
8 |
GM |
Petr, Martin |
2478 |
3½ |
|
9 |
FM |
Finěk, Václav |
2410 |
3 |
|
10 |
GM |
Plát, Vojtěch |
2535 |
2½ |
In the women’s championship, the rating favourites, WGMs Julia Movsesian (pictured below) and Karolína Pilsová, made it all the way to the final, which the former convincingly won by a score of 2-0. The last-year champion WIM Nataša Richterová prevailed over WGM Olga Sikorová in the match for bronze.
The complete results of the open and women's championships can be found here.
Official website: chess.cz/
Photos: Official website
