Polish Champ

Individual Polish Chess Championship is the most important Polish chess tournament, aiming at selecting the best chess players in Poland. Based on the results of the tournament (mainly), the Polish Chess Federation selects the national and subsequently the olympiad team.

The first men's championship took place in 1926, and the first women's event in 1935, both in Warsaw. Between the First and the Second World War, four men's finals and two women's took place. After the Second World War, the tournament has taken part annually, with minor exceptions. In most cases, they are round-robin tournaments, where men's groups are of 14-16 players, while the womens' are 12 to 14. There were only four Swiss system tournaments in men's tournament history (1975, 1976, 1977, and 1979) and seven in women's (1959, 1965, 1966, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978). Twice (1937 men and 1962 women) final tournaments attracted international players, however in 1962 medals were awarded only to Polish women players.

Winners
Year Men Women
1926 Dawid -Przepiórka
1927 Akiba -Rubinstein
1935 Ksawery Tartakower - Regina Gerlecka
1937 Ksawery Tartakower- Regina Gerlecka
1946 Bogdan -Śliwa
1948 Kazimierz -Makarczyk
1949 Kazimierz Plater - Roza Herman
1950 Wiktor Balcarek - Roza Herman
1951 Bogdan Śliwa - Krystyna Holuj
1952 Bogdan Śliwa -Krystyna Holuj
1953 Bogdan Śliwa - Krystyna Holuj
1954 Bogdan Śliwa- Wladyslawa Górska
1955 Józef Gromek -Krystyna Holuj
1956 Kazimierz Plater - Krystyna Holuj
1957 Kazimierz Plater - Krystyna Holuj
1958 Henryka Konarkowska
1959 Stefan Witkowski - Krystyna Holuj
1960 Bogdan Śliwa - Henryka Konarkowska*)
1961 Alfred Tarnowski- Apolonia Litwinska
1962 Witold Balcerowski- Anna Jurczynska
1963 Jacek Bednarski - Henryka Konarkowska*)
1964 Zbigniew Doda - Henryka Konarkowska
1965 Witold Balcerowski - Anna Jurczynska
1966 Jerzy Kostro - Krystyna Holuj-Radzikowska
1967 Zbigniew Doda -Elzbieta Kowalska
1968 Romuald Grabczewski - Miroslawa Litmanowicz
1969 Jerzy Lewi - Krystyna Holuj-Radzikowska
1970 Jerzy Kostro - Bozena Pytel
1971 Wlodzimierz Schmidt - Hanna Erenska-Radzewska
1972 Krzysztof Pytel -Hanna Erenska-Radzewska
1973 Krzysztof Pytel -Anna Jurczynska
1974 Wlodzimierz Schmidt - Anna Jurczynska
1975 Wlodzimierz Schmidt- Grazyna Szmacinska
1976 Aleksander Sznapik -Grazyna Szmacinska
1977 Ryszard Skrobek -Hanna Erenska-Radzewska
1978 Adam Kuligowski -Anna Jurczynska
1979 Jan Przewoznik - Hanna Erenska-Radzewska
1980 Aleksander Sznapik - Hanna Erenska-Radzewska
1981 Wlodzimierz Schmidt - Grazyna Szmacinska
1982 Jan Adamski -Agnieszka Brustman
1983 Zbigniew Szymczak -Grazyna Szmacinska
1984 Aleksander Sznapik - Agnieszka Brustman
1985 Ignacy Nowak -Malgorzata Wiese
1986 Marek Hawelko - Grazyna Szmacinska
1987 Robert Kuczyński - Agnieszka Brustman
1988 Wlodzimierz Schmidt - Grazyna Szmacinska
1989 Aleksander Wojtkiewicz - Joanna Detko
1990 Wlodzimierz Schmidt - Bozena Sikora-Gizynska
1991 Aleksander Sznapik - Czeslawa Grochot
1992 Jacek Gdanski -Krystyna Dabrowska
1993 Tomasz Markowski - Barbara Kaczorowska
1994 Wlodzimierz Schmidt - Magdalena Guzkowska
1995 Aleksander Wojtkiewicz - Monika Bobrowska
1996 Klaudiusz Urban - Agnieszka Brustman
1997 Robert Kempinski -Joanna Dworakowska
1998 Tomasz Markowski - Joanna Dworakowska
1999 Tomasz Markowski -Iweta Radziewicz
2000 Michal Krasenkow - Iweta Radziewicz
2001 Robert Kempinski -Joanna Dworakowska
2002 Michal Krasenkow - Iweta Radziewicz
2003 Tomasz Markowski Marta Zielinska
2004 Bartlomiej Macieja -Monika Socko
2005 Radoslaw Wojtaszek - Iweta Radziewicz
2006 Mateusz Bartel -Jolanta Zawadzka
2007 Tomasz Markowski - Iweta Radziewicz

Young masters

Samuel Rzeschewski, 8 years old, defeats chess masters in France, 16 May 1920 Kadel & Herbert

Steiner, Lajos (1903 - 1975)

Birth:
14 June 1903, Nagyvárad (Oradea), Austro-Hungarian Empire (Romania)
Death:
22 April 1975, Castlecrag, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cultural Heritage:

* Hungarian
* Romanian

Religious Influence:

* Jewish

Occupation:

* chess player
* mechanical engineer

* Life Summary
* Resources
* Abbreviations

Portrait of Lajos Steiner (1903 - 1975)

Lajos Steiner (1903 - 1975), by Len Leslie, courtesy of National Library of Australia. nla.pic-an22910928.
Image Details

STEINER, LAJOS (1903-1975), engineer and international chess master, was born on 14 June 1903 at Nagyvárad (Oradea), Hungary (Romania), one of four children of Bernat Steiner, mathematics teacher, and his wife Cecilia, née Schwarz, both of whom were Jewish. Lajos was educated at the Technical High School, Budapest, and gained a diploma in mechanical engineering (1926) from the Technikum Mittweida, Germany. Both he and his elder brother Endre started playing in master chess events in Budapest while they were schoolboys. Lajos was granted the title of master at the age of 19. At the Kecskemet tournament in 1927 he tied for second with Aron Nimzovich (Nimzowitsch) behind Alexander Alekhine, a future world champion. In the late 1920s Steiner spent two years working as an engineer in the United States of America. Back in Europe, he turned professional, but made a precarious living from tournaments. Apart from two Hungarian championship wins (1931 and 1936), his best performances were at Mährisch Ostrau, Germany (1933, tied for second), Maribor, Yugoslavia (1934, tied for first), and Vienna (1935, tied for first).

In 1936 Steiner toured Australia. Although he played in the 1936-37 Australian championship in Perth, and won every game, he was ineligible for the title. He returned to Western Australia in the Charon on 11 March 1939, en route to settle in Sydney. His father and brother were to die in Nazi concentration camps. At the district registrar's office, Burwood, on 19 October 1939 Steiner married Augusta Edna Kingston, who had won the New South Wales women's chess championship six times; they were to remain childless. Unable to earn a living from tournament chess, he found work as a mechanical draughtsman, first with International Combustion Australasia Pty Ltd and then with Electricity Meter and Allied Industries Ltd. He was naturalized in 1944. In 1949 he was appointed a designing draughtsman at the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. Ltd's chemical factory at Lane Cove.

As a European chess master, Steiner greatly improved the standard of Australian chess simply by playing in tournaments over the next twenty-five years. He competed in six Australian championships and won four (1945, 1946-47, 1952-53 and 1958-59); he also won nine of his ten attempts at the New South Wales title (1940-41, 1943, 1944, 1945-46, 1953, 1955, 1958). Possessing total powers of concentration and a remarkable knowledge of uncommon variations of opening play, he impressed Cecil Purdy 'as one of the few thinking chess masters'. Fellow players appreciated his unruffled, courteous and cheerful demeanour.

A tower of strength in the Metropolitan Social Chess Club, Steiner contributed numerous articles to Purdy's chess magazine. He wrote an account, Kings of the Chess Board, 1948 (1949), of his only return to Europe where he played in three tournaments, at Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary), Czechoslovakia, Budapest and Saltsjöbaden, Sweden. Due to his extended absence from the main chess centres of the world, the Fédération Internationale des Echecs never awarded him the title of grand master.

Steiner lived at Neutral Bay. Looking 'like a well-trained athlete', he was a keen amateur wrestler, and a good swimmer, tennis player and sculler. He stopped competing in major tournaments in the early 1960s, but continued to play A-grade for Chatswood Chess Club and willingly helped young players. He died on 22 April 1975 at Castlecrag and was cremated. His wife survived him.

1. Look at your opponent's move when you play chess.

Play Chess - Chess Strategy
Look at your opponent's move when you play chess.

When you play chess every time your opponent makes a move, you should stop and think: Why was that move chosen? Is a piece in danger? Are there any other threats I should watch out for? What sort of plan does my opponent have in mind?

Only by defending against your opponent's threats will you be able to successfully carry out your own strategies. Once you figure out what your opponent is attempting to do, you can play to nip those plans in the bud.
Example A
Black to move
play chess example

Pretend you're playing black in this position. White has just moved his queen to f3. What's the threat? How should you move to meet his threat?

Chess is a mind गेम

Play Chess - Tips for Winning Chess Strategy

by International Grandmaster Arthur Bisguier
Play Chess - Getting Started

Play chess! Chess is a game of strategy and tactics. Each player commands an army of 16 chessmen - pawns and other pieces (the King, Queen, Bishops, Knights, and Rooks).

A well-played chess game has three stages. In the chess opening, the players bring out their forces in preparation for combat. The middlegame begins as the chess players maneuver for position and carry out attacks and counterattacks. The final stage is the chess endgame when, with fewer pawns and pieces left on the board, it is safer for the Kings to come out and join the final battle.

As chess play proceeds, each chess player will capture some of the opponent's men; often, the capturing pieces are immediately recaptured. As long as the chess piece a player gives up is generally equal to the chess piece he gets in return, we say the players are exchanging. If you unintentionally place a chess piece where it can be captured without getting a chess piece of equal value in return, we say that you put that piece en prise. (This is a French term that literally means "in take.") Sometimes a chess player may place a piece en prise in order to trick an opponent. If the opponent captures the offered man, it may leave him open to attack.