In Spodek (Katowice), the European Fast Chess Championship came to an end. The winner was nineteen-year old Maksim Vavulin from Russia, who finished the tournament with the achievement of 10 points. He lost only with Sergie Zhigalko – the newly-minted European Champion in Flash Chess 2017, played on last Friday.

Jan-Krzysztof Duda stood on the second step of podium. Best chess polish player led in the tournament for 10 rounds, unfortunately in the last part he succumbed to the future champion (Russian). Duda is a member of the national team, who this year won a historical bronze medal at the Team World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk.

The third place went to Pavel Pankratov, also a representative of Russia.

The top ten included two other polish players. 5th place was taken by Wojciech Moranda, who had the same number of points as Duda, but the ranking of the places was determined by the auxiliary score. The 7th place went to Radosław Wojtaszek, leader of the Polish ranking list, who finished the tournament with the achievements of 9 points.

The championships were record-breaking in terms of attendance. The number of participants was 1181. The players played a total of 11 rounds, the speed of quick chess (they had 15 minutes + 10 seconds for each move they made (calculated by the chess clock from the first move).

The event accompanying the European Blitz and Rapid Chess Championship was a successful attempt to break the current Guinness record for the longest chess marathon. The challenge was taken by two players – Jacek Gajewski and Wojciech Waruga, who succeeded successfully. Waruga commented on the action: "I could continue playing chess. I still have some ideas for breaking records! " Players Waruga and Gajewski continued playing chess for 50h. The previous record was 48 hours.