Simuls, Rubik and a Guinness Record at 8th Polgar Chess Festival
On Saturday, October 4 the 8th Aquaprofit Polgar Chess Festival was held in the Palais of Arts in Budapest, and Chess.com was present!
Several hundred children, parents and special guests attended the 8th Polgar Chess Festival, organized by Judit Polgar and her sister Sofia. Both were present and involved in different events all day.
Kids and their parents could choose between a huge range of activities, such as simuls, a Chess Palace promenade, blitz performances, a magician, arts and crafts, and a conference on chess and education.
Chess Palace 3D, representing the Judit Polgar’s educational program, became part of the
National Curriculum in Hungary. Judit, her children, and her sister, Sofia pose in the Palace.
The program included a fairytale chess game with the fantasy cartoon characters Shrek and Fiona, played by Karoly Gesztesi, one of the most popular actors in Hungary, and Judit Polgar.
Among the prominent guests were Erno Rubik, the inventor of the famous Rubik’s Cube; Zurab Azmaiparashvili, the recently elected ECU president, and many other Olympic and world champion athletes, artists, and leaders of the business and political worlds.
Judit Polgar with Erno Rubik who invented the world famous
Rubik’s Cube exactly 40 years ago this year.
The festival ended with a simul given by Judit Polgar, who has been leading the FIDE world rankings for 25 years, setting a Guinness record also announced at the festival.
A special event was the second Chesskid.com youth match Hungary-USA. It was played over four boards with for each team a player U8, U10, U12 and U14. The time control was 10 minutes + 5 seconds increment and it was held over two rounds.
USA took the lead with a 2.5-1.5 victory in the first round, but then Hungary won the second round with the same score! With a 4-4 final score, the Hungarian team was perhaps the moral winner as it lost a winning position due to a mouse slip!
Chess.com was present at the festival and here's our video, which includes short interviews with Judit and Sofia Polgar, Erno Rubik and also 8-year-old Kata and 10-year-old Gellért Karacsonyi, who were performing a simul, not just participating in one. :-)
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.
Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.
Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.
As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!
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