Polgar Chess Festival Features Art, Transatlantic Match
What will GM Judit Polgar do after announcing her retirement? One of her first acts will be to once again host the 8th International Aquaprofit-Polgar Chess Festival on October 4.
Chess.com and ChessKid.com will be partial sponsors of the event.
Along with sister Sofia Polgar, Judit will emcee the annual event, which mostly caters to the youth chess culture in her native Hungary. All three sisters (including Susan Polgar) attended last year.
The Budapest Palace of Arts will transform into Chess Palace. Kids can earn play money will a variety of tasks, which they can then turn in for prizes.
There will be tutoring sessions, arts, crafts and music. "Chess Song" will be put to life with unique choreography.
To understand how big of a deal chess is in Hungary, look at the media reception that the silver-medal-winning Olympiad team (Judit included) earned this year:
Judit will play a variety of exhibitions with children, Hungarian celebrities and sportsmen. Last year, even Garry Kasparov attended.
"I think right now it's very important for chess to preserve for future for the game of chess for generations to come," Kasparov said.
Here's a good montage of the 2013 event, with a Kasparov cameo at the end:
Another highlight of the festival will be the second ChessKid.com Sponsored USA vs Hungary Chess Talent Match, which will conclude the schedule. Four of Hungary's best will face off against four strong American kids.
Chess.com and ChessKid.com will host the youth match, provide live commentary on Chess.com/TV, and reward each of the participants with Diamond Memberships to Chess.com.
The games begin Saturday, October 4 at 5:00 p.m. local time (GMT +2), which is 11 a.m. Eastern, 8 a.m. Pacific. Each player will play once as White and once as Black with a time control of 10+5.
Here are the lineups:
Hungary - USA
U8: Karácsonyi, Kata (1400) - Vanapalli, Vishnu (1570)
Kata Karácsonyi also played last year.
U10: Karácsonyi, Gellért (1788) - Chor, Kevin (2188)
U12: Kozák, Ádám (2220) - Yip, Carissa (2118)
Carissa Yip, youngest female chess expert ever.
U14: Havasi, Gergő (2336) - Feng, Roland (2298)
Last year, Hungary won round one and round two to win the match by a final score of 5.5-2.5.
Finally, in anticipation for the big event on October 4th, Judit Polgar and her foundation are sponsoring hundreds of free memberships -- worth thousands of dollars -- to Chess.com's scholastic extension site, ChessKid.com.
Those who Like Judit Polgar's page on Facebook and are among the first 50 to solve her "daily puzzle" over the next 10 days will win a 4-month Gold Membership for themselves and their child to ChessKid.
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Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
