Thanks to a day off, the main stage could offer space for three simultaneous exhibitions, featuring more players than we are used to seeing at the Prague International Chess Festival. On Monday morning, the main hall of the Don Giovanni Hotel filled up, and with the support of FIDE, participants had three opponents to choose from: GM Alexander Motylev, the 2014 European champion and one of the Challengers tournament players; Czech GM Tomáš Polák, currently the captain of the women's national team; and WGM Julia Movsesian, the reigning women's champion of the Czech Republic.

GM Alexander Motylev 

WGM Movsesian

GM Tomáš Polák

WGM Movsesian won eight games, lost twice, and tied with V. Směták, A. Zeman, A. Baraniuk, and M. Talián. GM Polák crushed all his opponents except for Petr Vaněk, a well-established Prague lawyer and chess supporter. Thanks to his aggressive game, he managed to win the exchange and secure a tie.

Most of the attention was focused on the games of the former 2700+ player, GM Motylev, who played against sixteen opponents. He fought for a full two hours against fierce opponents who did not intend to give up easily. In the end, they celebrated nine draws! The "half-winners" were M. Němec, D. Adolfsson, M. Beneš, D. Havlík, Š. Koukola, Vl. Křivánek, and three talented women—S. Markina, N. M. T. Nguyen, and S. Hosová.

 

A total of fourteen women attended the exhibition, supported by the FIDE Commission for Women's Chess. Each female participant received a small gift from Lenka Kůsová, a Czech woman chess manager under the Czech Chess Federation.

 

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