2nd Aquaprofit-Polgár Chess Day – within the frameworks of the renaissance year

The Polgár sisters are playing on 100 boards again

Budapest, 29th September. 2008

By favour of the Aquaprofit Co. there will be a chess festival with the Polgár sisters this year as well. This event will take place in an extraordinary beautiful place: in the Blue and the Glass Hall of the Palace of Arts on the 11th of October. Zsuzsa and Zsófi, who live abroad will travel home only for the sake of the chess day, so that they together with Judit, who lives in Hungary can play against their opponents. In the event, being held within the frameworks of the “Renaissance year”, actors, journalists, media people, professional and amateur chess players and young talents will sit at the tables. In addition the organizers are planning to make a great announcement as well.

The Aquaprofit Co. is a major sponsor of the Hungarian chess life for years; it is the name giving sponsor of the chess team of Nagykanizsa, which is one of the strongest chess teams in Hungary. Last year the management hired Judit Polgár to bring her back to the circulation of the domestic chess life. Besides it organized the successful Aquaprofit-Polgár chess day, this way, after ten years the world famous sisters played together again in Hungary The Aquaprofit Co. would like to continue this tradition this year as well: the 2nd Aquaprofit-Polgár Chess day will be held in the Palace of Arts at 3 pm on the 11th of October 2008.

Judit, who lives in Hungary, Zsuzsa, who will come from Texas and Zsófi, who lives in Canada will play simultaneously against opponents on 45 boards (15 boards each) and new players will start after each game is finished. This way, according to the plans more than a hundred players will have the chance to play in the simultaneous games.

There is an enormous interest for the event. There are already more than two hundred entrants. One thing is sure: young talents, professional chess players, actors and journalists will sit at the tables.

The organizers are planning to make a great announcement as well at the opening of the event.

Aquaprofit Co.

Background information:

What have the Polgár sisters in common?

All three of them were Olympic champions twice representing Hungary. Playing in the same team with Ildikó Mádl they managed to break the hegemony of the soviet female chess players in Thessaloniki in 1988 and in Novi Sad in 1990 as well. All of the Polgár sisters are mothers of two. An interesting remark: out of their 6 children the first 5 are boys and only Judit’s second child is a girl. They hold shows and give interviews all around the world, where they proudly speak about their Hungarian origin and their childhood, which they spent in Budapest. The saying seems to be true: “The Polgár-sisters are equal with three foreign ministers”.

Zsuzsa Polgár

She is the only adult Hungarian chess world champion. She has played four times in chess Olympics, where (besides her individual medals) she won two gold medals and one silver medal for Hungary. She then helped the American team win the silver medal for the first time in the history of chess in 2004 in Calvia. She has an honorary doctorate degree from the Texas Tech University and she is the head of SPICE (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence) of Texas Tech University. She lived in New York for more than ten years and moved to Texas last year to head SPICE. She may be the most famous and the most acknowledged person of the American chess by now, in addition to being a loyal representative of the Hungarian chess and Hungary as well.

Zsófia Polgár

She is a real artist. Her wonderful attack games and tactic solutions make her most beautiful winnings undying. In 1989 in Rome presenting the most valuable achievement ever, she had a performance of 2928. In this competition she won 8.5 points out of 9, in one section of the game she beat three Russian masters in a row. She and her family lived in Israel until the recent past, where she had been the leader of the Kasparov Chess Academy. They moved to Canada about a year ago because of her husband’s work. She plays more rarely these days, her “civilian” qualification is interior decorator.

Judit Polgár

She is the strongest female chess player ever. It is a total world record that she has been on the top of the female world rank for 28 times. (Kasparov has achieved this for only 23 times in his category). She is the most beloved participant of the world’s most relevant male competitions, which she earned not only because she achieved the 10^th place on the male world rank but she has also made lots of friends with her brave, non-opportunistic chess style. In spite of her young age she is a living chess legend. Last year she could celebrate the birthdays of Korchnoi and the Swiss Bank together with Karpov and Kasparov, chess legends similar to her. Judit by herself is a special category in the sports of the world, she is the most well-known Hungarian lady. She is an example of the fact that women can cope with men in all fields of life. However for most men it is better not to compete with Judit on the chess-board. She lives in Budapest, she was the “heroine” of the silver medal winning male chess team of the Chess Olympics of 2002, and she is the first player of the Aquaprofit chess team.

Aquaprofit Co.:

The Aquaprofit Technical, Consulting and Investment Company is one of the most competent firms in its field of business in Hungary. They do their best to realize their development concepts proposed by their partners or by themselves while taking the interests of the environment, economy and rationality into fullest consideration. They are indeed proud that most of their projects attain to the implementation phase. They have offices in five regions of Hungary (Budapest, Pécs, Nagykanizsa, Balatonfüred, Debrecen) and representatives in the remaining two regions. They have sister companies in Rumania and Croatia and Representative Offices in Brussels/Belgium for the Euroepan Union and Lima/Peru for Latin America. Environmental protection and emphasise on the principle of sustainable development are key issues in the Company's mission statement. They have three fields of activity: regional development and tourism, environment protection and water management as well as project financing. Being Maecenas is an important part of the business philosophy of the Aquaprofit Co., the management sponsors several events, funds and non-governmental organizations. The company is the name giving sponsor of the Aquaprofit Tungsram Chess Club of Nagykanizsa. They took the lead of the club in 2006 and with their leadership an old dream came true: it became the champion team of the Hungarian Chess Championship. Tamás Nádasi, the president of the company has been the leader of the chess association of the town for 25 years.

FIRST SATURDAY Budapest has long provided chessplayers with opportunities each month to gain or improve ratings, and to get IM and GM norms and titles.

For enquiries and further information as to how to participate in FIRST SATURDAY, go to www.firstsaturday.hu or contact László Nagy at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The list of the registered participants for the 6th-18th of September 2008 GM tournament FIRST SATURDAY, Budapest

IGM KOSIC, Dragan /MNE, 2516
IGM ILINCIC, Zlatko /SRB, 2519
IGM FARAGÓ, Iván /HUN,2482
IM PASCHALL, William /USA
IM NGUYEN, Huynh Minh Huy /VIE, 2477
FM TÓTH, Ervin /HUN, 2409
IM WITTMANN, Walter /AUT, 2272
IM GRAFL, Florian /GER, 2404
IM BÉRCZES, Dávid /HUN,2458
IM KAHN, Evarth Dr /HUN, 2317
IM SAMMALVUO, Tapani /FIN, 2468
IM UMANSKY, Mikhail /GER, 2469

Reserve: IM DUONG, The Anh /VIE, 2445

The list of the registered participants for the 6th-18th of September 2008 IM tournament FIRST SATURDAY, Budapest

IM VÉGH, Endre /HUN, 2298
IM LENGYEL, Béla /HUN, 2286
IM GALYAS, Miklós /HUN, 2463
IM SZALÁNCZY, Emil /HUN, 2388
IM FARAGÓ, Sándor /HUN, 2271
IM WERNER, Dimo /HUN,2329
FM ISMAIL, Shereif /EGY, 2152
MOSKOVIC, David M /ENG,2293
LI, Panru /CHN, 2104
SOLOMONS, Deon /RSA, 2216
RUECKER, Benjamin /GER, 2246
TO, Nhat Minh /HUN, 2322
FM LYELL, Mark /ENG, 2232
PEREZ ALEMAN, Pedro Thomas /ESP, 2210
KÖNNYÛ, János /HUN, 2314
KISLIK, Erik Andrew /USA, 2302
LEHMANN, Holger /GER, 2235
CSIRIK, András /HUN, 2272

Reserve: KANG, Kai /CHN, NR and ABBAS, Ismail /EGY, NR.

Min 9, max 13 players.

Many norms were given to the players from the just finished World Junior Chess Championship.

Grandmaster Norms

Arik Braun GER 2665
Hou Yifan CHN 2661
Tornike Sanikidze GEO 2643
Hrant Melkumyan ARM 2623

Woman Grandmaster Norms

Kübra Öztürk TUR 2413
Miranda Mikadze GEO 2410

International Master Norms

Lin Chen CHN 2557
Roman Nechepurenko RUS 2520
Atakan Şirin TUR 2473
Matas Narmontas LTU 2470
Orkhan Abdulov AZE 2467
Homayoon Toufighi IRI 2461
Davit Benidze GEO 2457
Denis Rombaldoni ITA 2451
Norat Lortkipanidze GEO 2451

Women International Master Norms

Preethi Rajkumar IND 2277
Sarah Hoolt GER 2283
Khayala Isgandarova AZE 2254
Zusana Borosova SVK 2256
Narmin Kazimova AZE 2321
Anastasia Bodnaruk RUS 2294
Zoja Severiukhina RUS 2296
Guliskan Nakhbayeva KAZ 2297
Tatev Abrahamyan USA 2266
Adriana Nikolova BUL 2269
Nafisa Muminova UZB 2261
Homa Hour Alavi IRI 2266
Sona Pertlova CZE 2256


For ther full article, please go to http://reports.chessdom.com/wjcc-im-gm-norms