Berkes, Gaal Win Judit Polgar's First Chess Triathlon

In the heart of Budapest at Judit Polgar's ninth Global Chess Festival 2023, the Hungarian duo, Team Mighty Fox, claimed victory in the festival's invitational triathlon event, bagging $4,000 in prize money in the process.

The winning team, comprised of GM Ferenc Berkes and WIM Zsoka Gaal, scrimmaged through three chess disciplines—Puzzle Battle, tandem chess, and finally, bullet chess, and finished atop the leaderboard ahead of GM David Howell and WFM Alessia Santeramo's Team Crazylandia.

Also running during the two-day celebration of chess were the online #ChessConnectUs Open and Scholastic tournaments, which were won by the 15-year-old FM Syvatoslav Bazakutsa and 13-year-old Will Moorhouse, respectively.

Creative crossovers between IRL and online play are all the vogue in chess right now and Polgar has continued to elevate the entertainment value of the Global Chess Festival with each edition.

In 2023, the Triathlon event took center stage, and with a star-studded lineup, including several of Hungary's top players as well as world-renowned content creators, viewers were in for a spectacle.

Speaking about the format of the triathlon, Polgar said the following: "Well, it was my idea to come up with something that might be very entertaining for chess enthusiasts and chess lovers. So the idea was to have mixed pairs and to have three kinds of chess activities where the players can show their focus, how they make decisions, what their intuition is all about, and how they can play in pairs. So to mix things up and have fun!"

The first segment on the schedule was Puzzle Battle and from these matches, two frontrunners would emerge— Team Crazylandia and Team Mighty Fox, who both finished on four points. Individually, the most outstanding performance in the section went to Howell, who won all his battles with scores over 44 and a high score of 46, with only IM Gellert Karacsonyi (42) coming close. Howell was all smiles after each clash. 

The English GM's partner Santeramo was unlucky not to put their duo in front after striking out on a score of 29 in her match with Team Maglat's WGM Dana Reizniece-Ozola. With 30 seconds on the clock, Reizniece-Ozola was able to make up the ground between them and finish two puzzles ahead of Santeramo on 31.

Meanwhile, Berkes and Gaal got off to a flying start and both managed to win two of their three Puzzle Battles. For Berkes, accuracy was prioritized over speed and, thanks to this, he was able to clutch up against GM Miguel Illescas by two puzzles.

Despite starting slowly in the Puzzle Battle segment, the tandem chess rounds were a raging success for Illescas and IM Olga Alexandrova, also known as Team DragonChess. After securing a draw with Howell and Santeramo in round one, the duo was unstoppable.

A helpmate against Berkes and Gaal from an equal position followed by a rook blunder by Karacsonyi and Reizniece-Ozola catapulted Team DragonChess into second place on seven points.

Still ahead of them however was Team Mighty Fox, who managed to win their other two games and take a commanding three-point lead over the field. The duo's success could be attributed to their teamwork throughout and their decision to play double-fianchetto systems paid off, particularly in their game against Team Maglat.

The final leg of the triathlon was bullet chess, a fitting sprint to the finish for the four teams. Unsurprisingly, the top seed Howell was the most dominant of the male players, scoring 2.5/3 for his team and only conceding a draw to Berkes (2/3) while Santeramo managed to add just one point to Team Crazylandia's tally.

Alexandrova and Gaal were equally impressive and finished in a tie on 2/3. Due to Berkes and Gaal adding a combined four points to their total, in the bullet segment, Team Mighty Fox's final score sat at 12, spelling a comprehensive victory for the Hungarian team.

In a post-tournament interview with Polgar and Sachdev, Berkes cordially spoke about the naming of their team, stating: "I used to be tricky and I think for sure that Zsoka [Gaal] was a part of this [in reference to the fox]." Berkes went on to suggest that his favorite segment was tandem chess while Gaal gave an alternate response, indicating that she enjoyed bullet chess. 

For their efforts, the pair received $4,000 while Team Crazylandia walked away with the $3,000 prize for second place.

Congrats to WIM Zsoka Gaal and GM Ferenc Berkes for winning @GMJuditPolgar's #GlobalChessFestival2023 👏🇭🇺 pic.twitter.com/gtI6co4Cz1

— Chess.com (@chesscom) October 15, 2023

Standings - Triathlon

All Games - Tandem/Bullet Segments

On the first day of the Global Chess Festival, two winners were crowned in the #Chessconnectsus online Swiss finals. In the open event, Balakutsa, a familiar name to eagle eyed fans of Chess.com's Junior Speed Chess Championship, won with a perfect 11/11 score having defeated multiple titled players in a clinical fashion.

The road to victory was a little tougher in the scholastic division for Moorhouse and after losing his fifth and sixth rounds, the "Go Magnus Chess Academy" student recovered sensationally with a hack-and-slash 13-move victory over his 1800-rated opponent.

Moorhouse then finished the event with five wins on the fly to assume his rightful place at the top and claim the year of free diamond membership along with a €150 Chessable voucher.