Today, 25 November marks 121 years since the founding of the first Lviv chess club
It started off like a game, for the sake of parties sans façon in the reading room of the university library or in a coffee shop. But the fever raised and on November 25, 1894 in the hall of the “Grand Hotel” was founded the Lviv chess club. Soon after, in the spring of the same year, the club held the City Championship, eventually won by Ignatz von Popiel, who at that time was justly regarded as the strongest player of Galicia. Since then, chess has not lost any popularity. Nowadays, Vassily Mykhaylovych Ivanchuk runs a professional chess school in town, and since last September in more than one hundred Lviv secondary schools there exist chess clubs, where children can freely learn the moves and play. Furthermore, many renowned Grandmasters belong to the Lviv community. It’s almost needless to remind our readers that on March 1, 2016 will start in Lviv the Women’s World Chess Championship match between Maria Muzychuk from Ukraine and 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) from China. |
A Chinese checkers board has 121 holes.
