The European Club Cups kicked off in Mayrhofen, Austria, with 70 teams in the open and 17 teams in the women’s tournament. There were no major upsets in the open, as the top teams mostly got easy wins. On the other hand, among the women, the favourites from Monaco won by the smallest of margins. Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen both drew with the black pieces. | Photos: European Chess Union
Since the start of the pandemic, opportunities for serious competition between players ranked outside the world’s top 20 have been scarce. So there was a pent-up appetite for the European Online Club Cup, which took place at the end of March, with more than 500 players registered (including more than 150 grandmasters) across 91 teams. Several teams from the 4NCL (Four Nations Chess League) took part: current champions Guildford, as well as Wood Green, Wood Green Monarchs, and Celtic Tigers.
With backing from Roger Emerson and Nigel Povah, the Guildford lineup consisted of England team regulars Michael Adams, David Howell, myself and Gawain Jones, as well as Ivan Cheparinov from Bulgaria. We came through some fierce competition in the preliminary stages, including a comfortable win over Baden Baden from Germany, who were the top seeds in the whole event. Ten teams qualified for the final round-robin stage, in which David Howell and Gawain Jones performed strongly, earning bronze a
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Precision matters
The winners from the SF Deizisau were not the only Germans playing in the final phase of the European Club Cup. Also playing was the Hamburger SK, Karsten Müller’s club. The grandmaster took a close look at two endgames from round 6, when his team faced the Cercle d’Echecs de Monte Carlo, the winners of the European Women’s Club Cup.
Elisabeth Paehtz drew Rasmus Svane on board 2, while Aleksandra Goryachkina and Nils Grandelius also split a point on top board.
The HSK did score a full point on board 4 though, as Almira Skripchenko lost to Julian Kramer after allowing Kramer’s bishop to escape from its ‘prison cell’.
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