Prague International Chess Festival 2021, a big chess forum that included Masters, Open and Futures tournaments, concluded last Sunday in the capital of the Czech Republic.

American GM Sam Shankland emerged as the winner of the most prestigious Masters event scoring an impressive 5.5 out of 7 and picked 18 rating points. Thanks to this excellent performance Sam is returning to a prestigious 2700+ club.

On his way to the victory, Shankland defeated the rating favourite Jan-Krzysztof Duda in their second-round encounter and earned the Award of Grandmaster Lubomir Kaválek for the best game of the festival which was awarded for the first time.

Jan-Krzysztof  Duda (Poland) finished just a half-point behind the champion; another Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek came in third.

Final standings Masters: 

In the other round-robin – Futures tournament – Jakub Vojta took the title whereas the narrowest possible victory (number of black pieces being the last tiebreak) in Open Swiss tournament goes to Polish GM Marcin Krzyzanowski.

Chief arbiter IA Pavel Votruba, tournament director Petr Boleslav, silver Kamil Warchol, victorious Jakub Vojta, bronze Matouš Hlavina, Futures tournament manager Petr Pisk

Final standings Open:

Futures tournament manager Petr Pisk, chief arbiter IA Pavel Votruba, tournament director Petr Boleslav, silver Felix Blohberger, winner of the Open Marcin Krzyzanowski, bronze Grzegorz Nasuta, Open tournament manager Jiří Petružálek

Photo: official website

Official website: praguechessfestival.com