Hungarian Chess Championship

The inaugural Hungarian Chess Championship was held in the city of Győr in 1906. Initially, there was no governing body responsible for its organisation, until the formation of the Hungarian Chess Federation. The HCF first appeared in 1911, but failed to establish itself properly until 1923.

The regularity of the Championship was patchy prior to 1950, due in part to the two world wars and inadequate funding. Since 1949 however, the HCF has been integrated with the Hungarian Sports Federation and so receives state support. Consequently, the Championship has since been held on an annual basis, with only the occasional omission. Exceptionally two consecutive events have occurred in the same year, due to the event being held at the year end.

The events held in 1981, 1984, 1991 and 1997 were all termed Super Championships. In both 1985 and 1988, the traditional national championship was substituted by an open championship and the winner of both editions was the Hungarian IM Béla Perényi.

As might be expected, the venue for the event has mostly been the capital city, Budapest. The events held post-World War II carry the official numbering (#) shown below, while the events held prior to 1945 are tagged with the letter 'p' (#p).

The 1999 championship (49th Men's, 47th Women's) was held 1–9 February in Lillafüred. In the men's section, the ten-player single round-robin tournament (average Elo rating 2553) was won by GM Zoltán Almási 6.0/9, a half point ahead of GM Gyula Sax and GM Zoltán Varga. The ten-player women's single round-robin (average Elo 2261) was won by WM Nóra Medvegy on tie-break over IM Ildikó Mádl, both with 6.0/9. Although invited by the Hungarian Chess Federation, some of the strongest Hungarian players chose not play this event including Susan Polgar, Judit Polgár, Zsófia Polgár, Péter Lékó, Lajos Portisch, and Zoltán Ribli.