A draw against a World Champion

Thanks to the efforts of the president of the Austrian Chess Federation Michael Stöttinger the last leg of the FIDE Womens Grand Prix series was held in Austria in a very special ambience in the G'Schlössl Murtal in Großlobming, Styria. You can see some nice pictures (including my highlight - all the participants in traditional Austrian costumes called "Dirndl") on the homepage of the Austrian Chess Federation:
Opening of the Womens Grand Prix

Against 4 world champions in one day

On the free day there was a special event with a blitz tournament where 6 young Austrian ladies could play together with 4 of the participants of the FIDE Womens GP and after that the 15th World Champion Viswanathan Anand played Blitz games against 7 Austrian young ladies. As the Styrian youth trainer I was able to take three of my students with me and visit the event. It was a very special chance for the young players, and they got a lot of motivation and inspiration from it. In the VIP-Blitz world champions Alexandra Kostenjuk, Mariya Muzychuk and Tan Zhongyi participated, so together with the game against Anand our young ladies could compete against 4 world champions.
In the blitz tournament there were no upsets even though some of the girls came close to beating a GP participant.
VIP Blitz on chess-results

Playing against the 15th world champion Viswanathan Anand

Anand got white and the girls were told to play until mate and the one who managed to survive for most moves would get a prize. The games were played with normal blitz time controls of 3 minutes + 2 seconds per move. In the first 5 games Anand convincingly won and Katharina Pötscher managed to play for 55 moves which was the record for the number of moves. Game 6 was against Eva Maria Schmied (see blog picture) and I want to show you what happened in it. Before that you can check out some more pictures of the event if you like:
Pictures on Jugendschach.at

Everything as expected - Anand gets the advantage

One slow move and Eva Maria gets counterplay

Strong play by the underdog leads to a winning ending

Nerves and time pressure let the World Champion escape with a draw

Nevertheless congratulations to Eva Maria Schmied for an exceptional result which is surely the highlight of her chess career so far. Except for the two slow moves in the opening and the blunder in the end she played extremely well especially considering that this was a blitz game!

After the games we were invited to a special dinner and had the chance to talk to lots of important people. Anand also shared some of his thoughts on the games with the girls.

Thanks for reading. I will write more about Styrian and Austrian talents here in future posts. If you need information about clubs, events or playing locations in Styria, feel free to contact me.