Category: General

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General Passed Events

ETH Chess Championship

On Saturday, May 20th the first edition of the ETH Chess Championship took place in the Alumni Pavillon, with the titles of ETH Chess King and ETH Chess Queen at stake.

This has been an exciting event with 73 participants. The competition was tough with no less than 5 titled players! Before the break, only two players had scored full points: Mateo and Kirill. They faced each other in a high-stakes game as the winner would take a serious option on the tournament’s victory. After a well-fought battle, Mateo had to resign making Kirill the sole leader. He then safely secured two draws in rounds 7 and 8 against the two favorites of the tournament and went on to win the last game to claim the title of ETH Chess King! Mateo and Noah complete the podium. Congratulation to all three of them!

Numerous prizes have been awarded beyond the podium. Special mention to Anna, who becomes the ETH Chess Queen as the first woman on the final ranking.

  • ETH Chess King: Kirill Zaitsev
  • ETH Chess Queen: Anna Adzic
  • Silver Medalist: Mateo Rodriguez Polo
  • Bronze Medalist: Noah Fecker
  • Best Bachelor Student: Theo Stijve
  • Best Master Student: Markus Fasching
  • Best PhD Student: Nagaarjhuna Arumuga Kani
  • Best UZH Student: Amir Alizade
  • Best Performance: Raphael Larisch
  • Best U1400: Giovanni Ottobonni
  • Best U1700: Josef Zoller
  • Best U2000: Serafin Jacob
  • Lucky winners: Giacomo Colombo, Paul Linder

This tournament has been an incredible experience and we wish to again thank all the participants. We also wish to thank our partners: the VSETH, the Rektorat, and chess.com, for helping us bring this event to life. 

The echoes of this year’s Championship have barely subsided, but our sights are already set on the horizon. We are looking forward to seeing you all next year and until then have fun!

Below you can find the full ranking and other pictures taken during the event. Credits for the pictures go to Danilo Đorđević!

WhatsApp Image 2023-05-21 at 22.39.12
WhatsApp Image 2023-05-21 at 22.39.13
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General Passed Events

Polychamps III

The Polychamps Trophy atop the ETH main building

With all the boards set up and all the players primed and ready, the third edition of Polychamps was carried out in the ETH Dozentenfoyer on Saturday, November 5th with a great view over the city of Zurich, the lake and the snowy mountains on the horizon. This also meant that for the first time 8 player from each university could look each other in the eye, while trying to fork, skewer and checkmate each other in classical games.

ETH Dozentenfoyer: Deep in thought over boards sponsored by ASK

Additionally, we organized an online blitz tournament for over 60 other players who did not qualify, but still wanted to play. It was as 90 minutes team arena with the winning university getting not only 1 point, but also the deciding tiebreaker if the overall result is a draw – which indeed happened after the last king was checkmated.

To top it all off, we arranged a twitch stream with GM Sebastian Bogner, Paul Dumoulin and Jasper Dekoninck as commentators, offering quality insights into the game plans and player psychology in this high stress environment. The stream can be viewed again following this link.

Twitch stream with live analysis by GM Sebastian Bogner

With convincing wins by Noah, Matej and Ana and an even harder fought point by Theo, SKETHZ managed to secure the OTB section with 4.5 – 3.5 points. Lukas went for the draw in a bishop for 2 pawns endgame, whereas Matej, Gohar and Anna sadly missed their chances against strong opponents. Nonetheless, all the game were high quality chess and very interesting to watch.

As an attentive reader, you might have guessed how the blitz tournament went. Unfortunately, the strong performances by Ritvik999, P1RU and Videvide were not enough and EPFL decided this section for themselves and evening out the score. As the tiebreaker was decided online per regulation, EPFL won by the slightest possible margin for the first time. Apparently for next time, we have to improve our online performance.

EPFL Team with the trophy
Our OTB-Team

Congratulations to the winners of La Dame Blanche! Additional reading material can be found on the websites of Akademischer Schachklub Réti and the Swiss Chess Association.

As usual, an OTB win is rewarded with a point, a draw with 0.5. The total results are:

ETHZ4.5 : 5EPFL
FM Noah Fecker1 : 0Julien Joly
FM Theo Stijve1 : 0Damien Ribière
Matej Jusup1 : 0Aleksandr Pak
CM Mateo Rodriguez Polo0 : 1Grégoire Tissier
Gohar Tamrazyan0 : 1WFM Hallgerdur Thorsteinsdottir
Anna Adzic0 : 1Wissam Pheng
Lukas Oestmann0.5:0.5Bénédict Wasserfallen
Ana Marija Vego1 : 0Sophia Pheng
Lichess: ETH Chess Club0 : 1.5Lichess: La Dame Blanche
Categories
General Passed Events

Polychamps III – Announcement

We are glad to announce that the third installment of the battle against EPFL – the Polychamps – will take place again this semester on Saturday, November 5! It will be in a hybrid format: online and over the board. The online part will be a Lichess Blitz competition open to everyone as in previous edition.

All over the board matches will be played in the Dozentenfoyer in the main building of ETH. 8 players from EPFL and 8 players from ETH will compete in classical matches. The games will be live streamed on Twitch and commented by a GM.

Support us by playing and watching the games. As the defending champions we are eager to repeat the result. Additional information about the format and previous results can be found on the Polychamps website.