Snowdrops and Oldhands 2013

Captains Morgan

[01.12.2013 00:00:00] - All the actors of the match had resolved the 8move composition of Mario Matouš surprisingly easily during the ceremony opening of Snowdrops and Oldhands. They didn´t even need to consult it with their captain.

The oldest of all grandmasters in hotel Zámeček, Pal Benko, had drawn colour of figures for the first round and so he decided the allocation of the captains as well. Oldhands were given the black captain Morgan, Snowdrops the blond one. For abstinents: it´s a rum whose taste excels the better with Coke and lime, and that belongs to the only doping tolerated on the trainings of grandmaster Sergey Movsesian.

Also the mayor of the town Poděbrady participated to the opening ceremony. He flattered gently the chess players when saying “while in the democracy two dumps outvote one intelligent man, in the chess game, one intellegent can overplay even twenty dumps,“ the Mayor of the town Poděbrady Ladislav Langr.


Vlastimil Chládek, Pavel Matocha, Jiří Navrátil and Juraj Ballo playing the simultaneous game with grandmaster Pal Benko.

Even if the Friday´s party elongated to Saturday, everyone was on time for the morning simultaneous game. Pal Benko (85 years) played against four advarsaries with a time control one hour to one hour and he won convincingly with the result 3 : 1. The precious scalp of the grandmaster was fight out by Vlastimil Chládek, the director of company Dopravní stavby Brno, whose game was analysed with interest by grandmasters Jan Smejkal and Ján Plachetka aftewards. You can find the game in next number of Šachový týdeník.

When 3 o´clock was stroken, the first round of the match Snowdrops vs. Oldhands started. Jossif Dorfman chose a firm Caro-Kan against Nastassia Ziaziulkina and the game didn´t lost the balance, beyond the slight spatial advantage of white. The game of Maria Muzychuk and Boris Gulko end up also with a draw, beyond the white was developing a pressure for longtime, even in the pawn ending.

Viktorija Cmilyte played against the oldest player, 80 year´s old Bora Ivkov, and she overplayed him step by step. Finally she sacrified a figure for the central pawns, that rolled like an avalanche that couldn´t be stopped. Deserved victory for Snowhands. Second victory of the first day belonged to Alina Kašlinskaja when Wolgang Uhlmann, being in better position, lost on time in the move 37. You can watch all the games here.


The legendary grandmasters and the young women grandmasters will compete from today till Sunday 8 December in the Blue lounge of hotel Zámeček.

The second round starts on the first Sunday of December at 3 p.m. and you can follow it up on-line here.

Photogallery of Snowdrops and Oldhands 2013 here.

| Pavel Matocha | visits(3098x)