The story about chess in the Polish Armed Forces is short and long.
Why? Because the last central tournament was organised in 1991 in Poznan. Before 1991 there were
organised many big (central) and small (regional) competitions. We had chess clubs, trainers and
many players. Playing chess was very popular. After 1991 (changes of Polish Armed Forces structure ),
the headquarters forgot about chess in the army... "People in uniforms" still played - but individual.
...In 2003 from 12 - 16 March, in Kolobrzeg we organisated a new edition (central) of chess in our army.
66 players from military enviroment took part in that competition. Winners from this tournament will
represent the Polish Armed Forces in XIV NATO Chess Championship in Kopenhagen. 3 players - Andrzej
Szczesniak, Anatol Lokasto and Slawomir Krainski took part in an earlier edition of the NATO competiton
in BREST (France) but the others - Zygmunt Pioch, Saturnin Skindzier and Piotr Bieluszewski will
participate for the first time. I hope this team is stronger that Brest's team because the players have
higher ELO ranking. Polish team consists of 3 senior oficers (retired), 2 company officers and 1 sergeant.
Tomasz Malinowski
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