What a classical tournament! This year’s Mitropa Cup is already its 35th edition and it is held in Prague for the first time. Three rounds are over, let’s see what has happened so far.

Opening ceremony and first round

The Mitropa Cup started on Saturday with the captains meeting. The opening ceremony took place on Sunday one hour before the first round. Players were greeted by the tournaments director Petr Buchníček, president of the Czech Chess Federation Jan Lamser and mainly by two opera singers Veronika Eichlerová and Irina Rurac.

Players has produced very fighting chess so far and the competitions are very even. Very strong is the Czech A team as they have never won the cup. First two boards are occupied by experienced players Zbyněk Hráček and Vlastimil Babula. With other two 2500+ grandmasters and one almost 2500 international master the Czechs are considered as frontrunners. Very strong teams with rating average safely over 2500 arrived from Hungary and Germany.

In the first round we were able to witness a derby match between Czech A and B teams. The more experienced A team won the match 3:1 but still only fourteen years old Van Nguyen of B team has shown great promise for the future with big win over Vlastimil Babula.

Ngyueyn – Babula after 31 moves

White on move found excellent tactical motive – 32.Rxb2! Qxb2 33.Rf8+ Kh7 34.Qe4+ g6 35. Rf7+ and black resigned.

Very attractive game was played by Leon Livaic and Dmitrij Kollars in the Croatia – Germany match. Livaic played the opening very carelessly and allowed black to force white king to march forward in twelfth move. Kollars won the game in 23 moves and helped his team win 3,5 : 0,5.

White king was forced to go on f3 in the 12th move

In the women section the German team is favoured by large margin. They proved their role already in the first round with the only 2:0 win in the tournament so far. Very surprising was Slovenian win 1,5:0,5 against Hungary with Jana Krivec defeating Ticia Gara.

Second and third round

Second round has proven that there are only very little differences between the teams. Four of five matches in the open section ended with draw! Only Slovaks want to forget about their match against Croatia as soon as possible as they lost to them 3,5:0,5! On the other hand, Croatia reacted the best possible way to their defeat 0,5:3,5 in the first round.

Kovacevic – Repka after 42 moves

In the diagram from the first board of Croatia – Slovakia match black Christopher Repka had an exchange up but white pieces were much better. Blazimir Kovacevic found nice way to win. 42.Qe6! Be7 43.Qxf7+ Kh8 44.Rxe7 Qxe7 45.Bc3 1-0.

In the women section Hungary redeem themselves with the 2:0 win over strong Poland. Home Czech team scored their first win 1,5:0,5 against Austria. Quite surprising result was Croatian win 1,5:0,5 over Slovakia which also ment that all the teams had at least one point after two rounds.

Third round brought another three draws in the open section. Czech A team secured themselves leading position after three rounds with convincing win 3,5:0,5 against Switzerland, which is with only one match point so far. Croatia followed up their performance from the second round and managed to win 3:1 against strong Italy.

Germany women team lost their first point after a draw with Slovakia. Women teams were inspired by second round of the open section and only Italy managed to win 1,5:0,5 over Croatia. Germany is on the top of the table after three rounds with 5 points followed by the Czech Republic and Italy both with 4 points.

Media

If you plan to visit Prague during the tournament, you are welcome to visit us. For others the organizers prepared live commentary in English. You can also check the photos.