While in Prague for the World Senior Team Chess Championship, as a member of the USA Women 50+ team, I visited the Prague International Chess Festival. Its opening ceremony was February 25 at 7 p.m. Connor Belakovsky, son of our team’s first board WGM Anjelina Belakovskaia, attended the ceremony with me. Connor took the photos for this article.
A former President of the Czech Republic was one of the speakers. At a post-ceremony reception, I briefly interviewed Grandmasters Liem Le and Vincent Keymer.
Václav Klaus
As a U.S. citizen, I can’t imagine a former U.S. president speaking at a chess tournament. At the opening ceremony of the Prague International Chess Festival, Václav Klaus was introduced as a president. I incorrectly assumed that he was a chess federation president or the president of a company. But, later, I found out that Klaus is a former president of the Czech Republic.
Klaus spoke about his own brief, but successful, chess career. His high school was located half a kilometer from the Don Giovanni Hotel Prague, site of the Prague International Chess Festival. When Klaus was a youngster, the area was known as Prague 12. A tournament for representatives of Prague 12 high schools was held, and Klaus won first prize. It was his first and last chess tournament. So, he joked, he has a better record at chess than any of the competitors in the Prague International Chess Festival.
Players
The Prague International Chess Festival is in its seventh edition in 2025. Three of its 2024 Masters competitors later played in the Candidates Tournament. And one of those, Gukesh D., became World Chess Champion. At the start of the opening ceremony, portraits of the first five champions were displayed. A portrait of last year’s winner, GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, was revealed mid-ceremony. The portraits are made using a blow torch.
GM Liem Le is one of the players in this year’s festival. A complete list of players, as well as other information about the festival, is at https://praguechessfestival.com/en/2025/
Le is the coach of the Webster University chess team, a many-time winner of college chess titles. I asked him about combining coaching with playing. Le said, “To be a good coach, it is important to be an active player. That way, one keeps up with opening theory.”
Number 1
GM Nigel Short wrote in his book Winning that picking number 1, as a round robin pairing number, brought him good luck. Even if one doesn’t believe in luck, pairing number 1 guarantees more games as White than as Black.
At 1:27 of the opening ceremony video, GM Vincent Keymer, Germany’s number one player, picked pairing number one. I asked Keymer which he prefers, freestyle chess or classical chess. He likes both, and scheduling allows him to compete in both. Keymer also knew the answer to the trivia question, “Which World Chess Champion was born in Prague?” Keymer said that he was also asked this question at last year’s festival. The answer is Wilhelm Steinitz, who is memorialized in a plaque in Prague.
Annotations
While waiting for my flight from Prague to London, the first leg of my return trip to the U.S., I was at the same gate as several other World Senior Team Championship players. Two of them, Helen Frostick and GM John Emms, helped me analyze Keymer’s win. Frostick was the alternate for the England Women team in the 50+ category. Emms was the alternate for the England 1 team in the 50+ category.
Pairing number 1 seemed to bring Keymer good luck, as he won as White against this year’s top seed, GM Wei Yi.
