TU Vienna Chess Festival 2025 - Blitz, Rapid & Bughouse

On May 16 and 17, 2025, this year's TU Vienna Chess Festival, featuring Blitz, Rapid and Bughouse took place in the Prechtlsaal in the main building of the TU Vienna, right next to the Charles Church in the Austrian capital.

Shortly before the tournament began, the organizing team led by Philipp Scheffknecht, chairman of the TU Vienna Chess Club, had already achieved a new registration record. 111 chess enthusiasts from 16 nations participated in the Blitz tournament (11 rounds of 3+2 in the Swiss system) on May 16th to compete for prize money, trophies, and non-cash prizes. The field of participants was quite strong, including at the top, with two Grandmasters, four International Masters, five FIDE Masters, one Female International Master, and three Candidate Masters (CM).

View into the Prechtlsaal of the TU Vienna - a short impression in the short 5s video:

FM Kundianok wins both Blitz and Rapid

The tournament victory in the blitz tournament was exciting right up to the decisive round: both FM Roman Pyrih (who will shortly be appointed IM) and FM Vladislav Kundianok had 9 points from 10 rounds, behind them the chasing team of GM Lev Yankelevich, IM Georg Fröwis, IM Lukas Leisch and your reporter, who all played for the third place on the podium.

While FM Roman Pyrih had to admit defeat to GM Lev Yankelevich with White, FM Vladislav Kundianok was able to confidently convert his game against me into a win in a time trouble battle and was thus declared the tournament winner.

The winners of the blitz tournament, from left to right: Philipp Scheffknecht (Chairman Schachclub TU Wien), FM Roman Pyrih (2nd), FM Vladislav Kundianok (1st), GM Lev Yankelevich (3rd), IM Lukas Leisch (4th), GM Andreas Diermair (5th)

Blitz tournament (111 participants, final ranking)

The special prizes in the blitz tournament went to:

Best women in both blitz and rapid chess: WIM Daiva Batyte from Lithuania (Blitz: 14th place, 7.5 points from 11 rounds; Rapid: 24th place, 5 points from 9 rounds)

Best TU member: CM Deniz Seyhanoglu from Turkey (7th place, 8 points from 11 rounds)

Best player without Elo and without club: Oleksandr Polishchuk from Austria (74th place, 5 points from 11 rounds)

Youth winners with Rochade Kids - chess magazines as non-cash prizes, from left to right: Philipp Scheffknecht, Leo Radnaev, Filip Jevremovic, Florentin Stickler

Rapid tournament with 76 participants

The next morning, arbiter Johann Webersberger and tournament assistant Christoph Suster had to deal with the fact that four participants sat down on the wrong boards in the rapid chess discipline with 76 participants during the first round - after a quick correction, the second round could then continue directly. Otherwise, with around 1000 individual results, the arbiter team hardly ever had to intervene. The tournament victory in rapid chess was supposedly already decided in the penultimate round, when IM Georg Fröwis had to admit defeat with 6/8 to the eventual tournament winner FM Vladislav Kundianok with the white pieces - Kundianok thus had a one-point lead going into the final round. In the decisive final round, FM Kundianok immediately offered FM Peter Sadilek a draw - the latter hesitated briefly but courageously refused with Black, risked a lot, and in the end was rewarded for his courage despite losing a position in the meantim. In time trouble on both sides, Kundianok overlooked a fatal intermediate check, after which Sadilek was able to wind up in a won rook ending. Silver went to IM Lukas Leisch, who offered a draw in a better position against your reporter to secure second place. Leisch probably no longer believed that Kundianok would lose with White - but if Leisch had won, he would have been first thanks to his better Buchholz. The 14-year-old Florentin Stickler from 1. SK Ottakring also caused a sensation, defeating FM Philipp Enöckl and Adam Steiner in the two final rounds, gaining over 100 Rapid rating points and finishing in a remarkable 6th place.

Rapid tournament (76 participants, final ranking)

The winners of the rapid chess tournament, from left to right: FM Peter Sadilek (5th), FM Roman Pyrih (4th), IM Florian Schwabeneder (3rd), FM Vladislav Kundianok (1st), IM Lukas Leisch (2nd), Philipp Scheffknecht (Regional Arbiter)

Bughouse tournament with 24 teams

To round off the chess festival, a bughouse tournament with 24 teams and 48 participants took place. The tournament victory with 10 points from 11 rounds went to the duo IM Fröwis and Philipp Scheffknecht, who had previously helped out as an arbiter at the blitz and rapid chess tournament due to the high number of participants and was now “allowed” to take part himself. Silver went to the duo FM Enöckl / Sekyra, who defeated GM Diermair / Staberhofer in a direct duel and each scored 9 points.

Winners of the bughouse tournament, from left to right: FM Philipp Enoeckl / Michael Sekyra (2nd), Philipp Scheffknecht / IM Georg Fröwis (1st), GM Andreas Diermair / Rainer Staberhofer (3rd)

Bughouse tournament (24 teams, final ranking)

Many thanks also to the TU Vienna for providing the Prechtlsaal and to all the helpers, sponsors, and supporters who made the chess festival possible.

The TU Vienna Chess Club is already looking forward to the next chess festival, which is due to take place again in 2026. The TU Vienna Chess Club consists of almost 70 members, offers club evenings every two weeks during the season, plays with six teams in the Vienna corporate leagues, and offers game analysis and training with chess masters over 2000 Elo - further information via https://schach-tuwien.at