Global Chess Festival

The tradition & historical record

The Judit Polgár's Global Chess Festival is an annual one-day festival celebrating the diversity of chess, held in Budapest, Hungary. The festival started in 2015, and connects fans and chess organizers around the world with chess-related activities. ¹

The festival is held every year on the second Saturday in October. Chess activities for adults and children include professional tournaments, simultaneous chess games, educational conferences, art shows and various programs for families. The festival's slogan is: "Chess Connects Us". A traditional simultaneous exhibition is held at the Budapest venue, with the sisters Judit and Sofia Polgar. ¹

It was held in the Buda Castle Garden Bazaar under the patronage of Tibor Navracsics, Member of the European Commission. The programs included professional chess tournaments, simultaneous exhibitions, school challenges, social gatherings, and art shows related to chess. The Highlander Cup hosted World Champion (2004) Rustam Kasimdzhanov from Uzbekistan, the Israeli World Chess Championship Challenger Boris Gelfand, two-time chess Olympiad silver medalist Zoltán Almási, six-time Hungarian champion Ferenc Berkes, member of the Olympic team Benjamin Gledura, Woman's European champion Hoang Thanh Trang and grandmasters Gabor Papp and Gergely Antal. ¹

The 3rd Global Chess Festival was held in Graphisoft Park, Budapest. Among the programs: the Chess Palace Cup for kids, Generational Clash, LIVE Chess Theme Artwork, a musical performance by the French composer Jason Kouchak, combining Chess & Music. ¹

In 2018, 250 venues from 23 countries took part in the Fourth Global Chess Festival. The main event was at the Hungarian National Gallery. The event was followed online by nearly 100,000 people. Educational chess was another highlight of the festival. Children, parents and teachers get the chance every year to find out more about Judit Polgár's Chess Palace and Chess Playground educational programs and also meet the authors of the books face to face. A new award called the Goodwill Ambassador of Artistic Values of Chess was given to artists whose work has been inspired by chess. These include Japanese-American multimedia artist, peace activist Yoko Ono and her long-time collaborator Sam Havadtoy, Chilean singer-songwriter Juga, Hungarian pianist Gergely Bogányi and French composer Jason Kouchak. ¹

The Fifth Global Chess Festival was again held in the Hungarian National Gallery in October 12, 2019. Among the special guests were Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), Vladimir Kramnik, 14th world champion, and the legendary trio of the three Polgar Sisters. It was the first time to organize The Inspiration Cup, which is a funny and entertaining form of chess called "Hand&Brain", where couples compete with each other, one player being the "Brain" to name a piece and the other player being the "Hand" to decide where to move with the piece. Also this year was the first edition of the Chess Connects Conference with renowned scientists, world-famous chess players and educators. It highlighted the major role chess plays in art, its contribution to science, the opportunities it provides in education as well as the evolution of chess as a sport. Ken Rogoff, a professor at Harvard University, showed how he could use his experience as a chess player in his earlier career with a special focus on the human factor. Neuroscientist Sylvester E. Vizi, former president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, gave a lecture on artificial intelligence, which was also discussed by international female chess master Natasha Regan and grandmaster Matthew Sadler, co-authors of the bestselling book on AlphaZero. Spanish specialist Leontxo Garcia outlined the benefits of chess in education, Chilean singer Juga compared the universal language of chess and music, and grandmaster Susan Polgar highlighted the success of the institute she has founded (SPICE) to encourage college chess. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Global Chess Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Global Chess Festival is Chess event in Budapest, Hungary, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²