Karel Janeček opened the festival
The first Tuesday evening in the Prague chess festival schedule traditionally belongs to the opening ceremony and it was no different this year. In both the Masters and Challengers main tournaments, we have five games each day and the opening draw has decided what fights we can look forward to in today's first round.
The draw for both tournaments was handled by Karel Janeček. Karel Janeček will also open the second day of play and will be part of the children's day with his new game Mathesso.
In the Masters tournament, the Czech GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen was awarded number 1, so he will defend the white pieces in the first two games and will face the defending champion Pentala Harikrishna in the opening round. The other matches on the first day of play also offer battles for the first points on the table.
1st round Masters tournament:
| Round 1 on 2023/06/21 at 15:00 | ||
| GM NGUYEN Thai Dai Van (2653) | GM HARIKRISHNA Pentala (2704) | |
| GM KEYMER Vincent (2690) | GM WANG Hao (2722) | |
| GM NAVARA David (2689) | GM DEAC Bogdan-Daniel (2693) | |
| GM SHANKLAND Sam (2711) | GM GELFAND Boris (2668) | |
| GM MARTIROSYAN Haik M. (2685) | GM ROBSON Ray (2689) | |
We can also look forward to some interesting games on the opening day of the Challengers tournament. There will be comparisons between Czech youngsters and world players, but also duels between foreign players Bartel - Gledura or Motylev - L'Ami.
1st round Challengers tournament
| Round 1 on 2023/06/21 at 15:00 | ||
| GM BARTEL Mateusz (2609) | GM GLEDURA Benjamin (2645) | |
| IM STALMACH Richard (2436) | GM PULTINEVICIUS Paulius (2530) | |
| FM FINEK Vaclav (2409) | GM AKASH G (2483) | |
| GM PECHAC Jergus (2611) | IM VYKOUK Jan (2467) | |
| GM MOTYLEV Alexander (2597) | GM L'AMI Erwin (2645) | |