Mitropa Cup 2023 – France won the gold medal in both sections

The Chess Mitropa Cup is an idea of the Austrian International Arbiter Gertrude Wagner. She wanted to create a tournament for teams in the center of Europe. This tournament has a lot of history, as the first Mitropa Cup was in 1953 in Vienna with only six teams. A different participating country hosts the tournament every year.

There are ten teams in each section – Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. In both, the Open and Women sections there are 4+1 players in the team and the time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment starting on move one. The format is a nine-round team round-robin, rated as 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.

This year Mali Losinj in Croatia gave home to the competition, from the 11th to the 19th of April. I took part in the tournament as a player of the Slovak Women’s team on the fifth board and I enjoyed my time there. I got to meet a lot of professional chess players and play with people from many countries. The Croatian Chess Federation organised it on a stunning island and we never came to have any problem there. My playing was quite fine, I played some nice games and got some important lessons about my play as well. I scored 3 points from 7 games and as a team; we ended in seventh place, which was also the place where we were seeded according to our average rating.

Open Section

In the Open section, there were four teams who had an average rating of over 2500: Hungary, Italy, France and Slovakia. The first round went as expected and the stronger teams won. In the second round, two of the favorites clashed, as France played against Italy, and in the end, this match decided the winner. France defeated Italy 2½ – 1½ by which it secured itself a 2-point lead.

In the coming rounds, France made two draws, and teams of Italy and Hungary caught up with the leader.

The eighth round eliminated Hungary from the race as they drew against the Czech Republic. When I walked into the playing hall in the last round, I could feel the tension between the players. After many hard games, France won against Austria, but Italy couldn’t stand the pressure and they lost against Slovenia. At first, it looked like Hungary was going to take second place as they were winning their match with Slovakia, but after a hard game on the fourth board, Slovakia equalised the match. After all, France won the tournament, Italy took the silver and Hungary the bronze.

Women’s section

In the Women’s section, the leading teams were Slovenia and France by rank, with an average rating of over 2200. The first surprise came when Slovakia defeated France in the second round. After that, nobody could stand in their way as they won the next six matches, and before the last round, they had their first place secured.

After the eighth round, two teams had a chance for the silver medal position – Croatia and Slovenia, both following France with 3 points distance with 11 points. In the ninth round, both teams won and the score points decided the team will finish ahead. As Croatia had one score point more than Slovenia, they finished in second place and Slovenia was third.

You can check the full results here!

Author

LUCIA ŠEVČÍKOVÁ