World’s Golden Junior
The world’s top junior player, Divya Deshmukh, will visit Prague for the first time to compete in the Prague International Chess Festival, specifically in the Challengers tournament. The 19-year-old from India recently achieved great success, winning a team gold medal at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest. Representing her country on the third board, she not only contributed to the team award, but also won an individual gold medal with an impressive score of 9,5/11 points.
GM Ivan Salgado will defend Spanish colors in the Challengers tournament. Ivan brings extensive chess experience, both on and off the board. He has coached the Spanish women‘s team, leading them to a 4th place at this year’s Olympiad, and has published several books on chess. Notably, he co-authored The Chigorin Bible with GM Ivan Sokolov.
What are your expectations for the Challengers tournament? My expectations are to enjoy the opportunity of playing such a strong tournament. I never had many opportunities in my career to play round robins like this, so my main goal is to play interesting games in every single round and forget about the result.
Have you visited Prague? Do you have a favourite spot here? I was once in Prague for training purposes... so I did not have too much time to have a favorite place yet! Hopefully, this will change after the tournament! What I can say for sure is that I enjoyed interacting with the people from Prague. All of them were very nice to me.
Among the impressive ranks of Chinese players, like current world champion Ding Liren and China’s chess #1 Wei Yi, stand many excellent players. One of them, 32-year-old Ma Qun, has earned a spot on the Challengers roster. With a rating of 2630, he is a strong candidate for the victory. has received a spot on the Challengers roster and his rating 2630 qualifies him for being a top candidate of a complete victory.
The 7th year of the Festival is just four months away (February 25 to March 7, 2025). We send a warm invitation to every fan to visit the Don Giovanni Hotel Prague and remind those contemplating participation that the Open and rating tournaments registrations are currently in full swing.