FISU WORLD UNIVERSITY CHAMPIONSHIP MIND SPORTS 2022

The FISU World University Championship Mind Sports 2022 were held in the city of Antwerp in Belgium from 11 to 17 September. The University of Antwerp has taken care of the entire organization and continued its tradition of organizing mind sports events. Students from around the world visited Antwerp to compete in chess and bridge championships.

It all started with the Official Opening Ceremony that took place at the biggest auditorium of the University of Antwerp in the City Campus. All the 20 participating countries took their flag and went through the Auditorium with the complete team and captain. The choir sang the national anthem of Belgium and the FISU Anthem. Traditionally, the oath of athletes and technical officials was taken, and the tournament was officially opened.

The tournament started with a couple of two-rounds and exhausted some players. The rate of play was 90 minutes plus 30 seconds increment and players may have agreed for a draw after 30^th move played by black. That added some importance to the tournament.

After a few rounds, in men championship it became a fight between a Polish Igor Janik and Iranian Arash Daghli. Both seem to be in very good shape and ready to give their all. On the contrary, women category became very unclear and balanced. It was exciting to see that anybody could beat anybody. People could only bet on who was about to be the champion.

I represented Slovakia and The University of Žilina. My goal in women category was to play good moves and try to hold the position against stronger players. The tournament started very well. I scored against the second seed and a hope for a WIM norm came to life. Unfortunately, I could not endure all the stress and my energy was slowly decreasing.

In the middle of the fighting for medals, the World University Blitz Championship was organized. Some players skipped so they could get some energy. The games were online and extremely exciting to watch. The evaluation in some games was changing every few moves. At the end, Alicja Sliwicka won the women’s section with 6,5/9 and Tin Jingyao, the men’s section with 7,5/9.

Ending of the tournament, Arash Daghli had taken the lead in men’s tournament. He became the only undefeated player, and he finished this outstanding performance with a draw in the last round, which secured him the gold medal. In women’s tournament after round 8 there were 6 girls with the same number of points–5,5, so the last round was the decisive one. Fiona Sieber was the only one who won, and 6,5 points secured her the first place.

They awarded not only champions but also countries. They added the results of the top three players from each country up together and the Islamic Republic of Iran, with overall 19 points, went home with the gold medal. Poland placed second with 18,5 points and Germany took home the bronze medal with 17 points. After 9 rounds, I placed 12^th with 5 points and a rating gain of almost +17. With a little help from me, Slovakia placed 8^th in the team championship. The competition was very strong and as I mentioned before; it was not clear who is going to be the winner. It could have been literally anyone, and it also could have been me. 🙂

Author

STELLA SÁŇKOVÁ