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16th European Team Championship, Crete, 27 Oct - 6 NovLast Edited: Thursday March 25, 2010 10:05 PM
Reports from Mark LyellMark is travelling with the England party. He has also kindly provided the photos of the event. Round 7: After a disastrous round six England made a good recovery with victories for the men's and women's teams against Germany and Sweden by 2½ points to 1½ in each case. Both Nick Pert and Stuart Conquest equalised comfortably as Black playing on boards two and four against Gustafsson and Baramidze. Both games were agreed drawn before move thirty. This left Michael Adams and Mark Hebden playing for wins as white on boards one and three. Hebden soon won a pawn against Buhmann in a Queen's Gambit Declined and eventually converted this to a win. Michael Adams played on for a win in a position resulting from a 5...Bc5 Lopez against Naiditsch. He was slightly better against but eventually agreed a draw on move fifty-one. The women's match against Sweden started with two victories. First to finish was Ingrid Lauterbach who won against Viktoria Johansson with a 3. Bb5 Sicilian. Her opponent appeared to have equalised the game but then drifted and blundered a pawn. Another pawn was shed a couple of moves later and Ingrid had a winning position which she converted to a win on move thirty-four. Jovanka Houska beat Svetlana Agrest who tried the Schliemann Defence. Jovanka played the relatively quiet 4 d3 variation. Black became slightly passive and left her king's bishop offside and White's threats to trap it resulted in Black losing a pawn. Jovanka then obtained a winning rook and pawn endgame and her opponent resigned on move fifty-six. That left Dagne Ciuksyte or Meri Grigoryan needing a draw to win the match. Dagne won a piece for three pawns after a tactical sequence in the black side of a Kan Sicilian against Christin Andersson (n.b. Christin Andersson is no relation to Ulf Andersson - a previous BCM had reported that she was his wife [hopefully before my time - ed]) and it looked like she would reach obtain at least a draw. Meri's Albin Counter-Gambit against Eva Jiretorn worked out well and she had a chance to obtain the advantage but missed it and her position went downhill from that point. Meri eventually resigned her game and Dagne obtained the necessary draw. In the men's competition the leaders Russia edged nearer to victory with a win over France. Morozevich as white beat Tkachiev with a quiet flank opening after Tkachiev allowed a tactical sequence which won material. The remaining games in the match were drawn. Armenia moved into clear second place with a win over Slovenia, Sargissian beating Tratar on board three. In the match Ukraine v Azerbaijan there was fine win by Mamedyarov as black against Ivanchuk. Black played the Grunfeld and obtained a very comfortable endgame where he had a bind on the position. White could do nothing and eventually Black advanced his centre pawns to win the game. This won the match as the other games were drawn. In the other top matches Spain drew with Poland and Israel beat Norway. Wales achieved a draw with Luxembourg with Richard Jones and Charles Morris winning against Berend and Weber respectively. Scotland lost 3-1 to Finland with Graham Morrison and Keith Ruxton obtaining draws. In the women's competition there was another good result for Poland beating Ukraine 3-1. On top table Russia beat Georgia 3½-½ with Korbut winning against Lomineishvili and the remaining games were drawn. The Netherlands and Armenia advanced with wins over Slovenia and Bulgaria respectively. Round 6: The surprise result of this round was Slovenia's win against Azerbaijan in the men's competition. It puts the nineteenth seeds into sole second place behind Russia, who they have already played. Their team of GM Belyavsky, GM Pavasovic, IM Lenic and IM Borisek were outrated by about 120 elo points per board by Mamedyarov, Radjabov, Gashimov and Guseinov. However the top three boards were drawn and it was left to Borisek as black on board four to grind out a 107 move win against Guseinov in an endgame resulting from a standard Ruy Lopez. Russia continued their onward march. This time the victims were Israel. Jakovenko on board four beat Rodshtein in a IQP position from a Queen's Gambit Declined. Boards two and three were drawn and boards one Svidler v Sutovsky was the last game to finish. Sutovsky played the Open variation of the Ruy Lopez, but after some exchanges Svidler exploited some holes in the black position to obtain a rook ending where he was a pawn up. He duly converted this advantage to a win on move 62. Ukraine, Armenia and France beat the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria respectively and these three teams now share third place one point behind Slovenia who are two points behind Russia. In the women's competition Russia moved into first place on tie-break with a 3½-½ win over Slovenia. Poland produced another good performance drawing against a resurgent Georgia. All games were drawn at around the 30-move mark. Russia and Poland have 10 points and Ukraine and Georgia who both lost in the first round are one point behind. This was a pretty miserable day for the England with both teams losing 3½-½. However, according to a joking Mark Hebden, there was a reason for the loss of the men's team (to Poland). The problem was the rest day on Friday. Naturally enough the players wanted to take advantage of the rest day by staying up late the night before. This had a knock-on effect because they didn't drink enough alcohol on the Friday evening to keep up with previous levels, causing withdrawal symptoms which had an adverse affect on their play! Michael Adams drew quickly as black against Socko on board one, but everything else did seem to go wrong for England. Nick Pert got his queen trapped and resigned. Gawain Jones slipped up in the white side of a sharp Scotch game. He continued to fight and almost salvaged the game reaching a R + BP + RP v R ending. Like Meri Grigoryan's endgame in round four this was probably drawn but Gawain eventually lost. Mark Hebden played a reasonable-looking sacrifice of a pawn for tempi early in the game but his opponent managed to defend and emerged a pawn up in and endgame which he won, thus ending Mark's fine run of results. The women's team team had no alcohol-related jokes to make light of their result against Azerbaijan, however one team member suggested that she needed a brain transplant after losing. Only Ingrid Lauterbach achieved a draw on board 3, the other three England players lost. Wales suffered a 3½-½ loss against an all-GM Montenegrin team, Tim Kett obtaining a draw against Ivanovic. Scotland had a bye. Round 5: Russia looked unstoppable in the men's section after they beat Azerbaijan 3½-½. The two games on boards one and two attracted the greatest interest. Mamedyarov v Svidler was an excellent win for Svidler in the Black side of a Semi-Slav. From his previous games Mamedyarov had appeared to be in good form, however Svidler equalised in the opening and then with only the major pieces on the board he took total control of the d-file with doubled rooks . The players had castled on opposite sides and each side had a pawn majority which could potentially be advance towards the opponent's king. However Svidler instructively restrained his opponents pawns while making use of his own majority. Coupled with his d-file dominination this was easily enough to win the game. Mamedyarov resigned on move thirty-six. Morozevich also won in clear-cut style after a Classical Sicilian quickly developed into a minor piece endgame. Morozevich appeared to play the final bishop endgame correctly and Radjabov resigned in a position where Morozevich would have only two connected pawns but these would be enough to win the game against Radjabov's lone bishop as his king was out of play. Guseinov also lost against Alekseev on board 4 after playing a b5 pawn sacrifice in a standard King's Indian position. Alekseev took the pawn and held on to the material to eventually win the game after some complications. On the second table, Ukraine drew with France after Bacrot sensationally demolished Ivanchuk with the Black pieces in a sharp variation resulting from a 4 .. a6 5 c5 Slav. Both kings were exposed but black obtained two massive connected knights on f2 and d3 and finished off Ivanchuk with a mating attack. There was also a regicidal onslaught on board two where Karjakin was playing a Slav defence against Tkachiev. Tkachiev was in a difficult position and allowed Karjakin a variation where he could sacrifice a piece to expose his king. This variation became a reality and it was then clear that Tkachiev was caught in a mating net so he resigned on move 40. The remaining two games in the match were drawn, thus Ukraine and France split the points. In the women's competition Poland v Russia was the table one clash. Poland were out-rated by 100 points per board on average however they produced an excellent perfomance to draw with the highly-rated Russians and now have every chance of retaining their crown. Monika Socko tried an Exchange Lopez against Kosteniuk and soon obtained a rooks and bishop versus rooks and knight endgame position where she had an extra pawn on the kingside. However Kosteniuk managed to get counterplay by advancing her c pawn to shatter Whites queenside pawns and ended up winning a pawn obtaining two extra pawns on the queenside. She didn't have time to make use of these pawns however as a pair of rooks were exchanged and Socko used her king to support the advance of her remaining pawn on the kingside. Kosteniuk was short of time and the game ended up with a forced repetition of moves. Russia won on board four where Korbut outrated Przezdziecka by nearly 200 Elo points, and Zawadzka drew against Nadia Kosintseva. However the final game to finish was a marathon of 93 moves with Rajlich eventually winning through against Tatiana Kosintseva in a rook and opposite coloured bishops endgame, resulting in a drawn match. Hungary lost to lower-rated Slovenia where the only decisive game was a win by Vesna Rozic for Slovenia on board four against Ticia Gara. Georgia beat the home team Greece 3-1 and have now worked their way back into contention, joining Russia and Slovenia on 7/10, one point behind the leaders Poland. The English men's team had a tough match against Spain. Adams v Shirov went into a sideline of the Archangelsk variation of the Ruy Lopez where Shirov was forced to think, however he dealt with the pressure correctly and equalised into a dead level rook endgame which was agreed drawn. Mark Hebden played a magnificent game on board three where he let black take a central pawn in an unorthodox Queen's Gambit. Instead of recapturing the central pawn Mark just maneuvered all his pieces to the kingside where the black-squared bishops had earlier been exchanged. Black's forces were in disarray and pushed to the back two ranks while White achieved a most picturesque and effective concentration of force against the Black monarch. Have a look at the position after White's 30th move ! Stuart Conquest drew comfortably with the Sicilian as black against Narciso Dublan, however Gawain Jones lost with Black to Vallejo Pons in the black side of a Maroczy bind. The England women's team lost to Romania 2½-1-5 in a closely fought match. Jovanka Houska drew with white in 31 moves against Peptan in a Kan Sicilian. Another Kan Sicilian on board two saw Dagne Ciuksyte winning an attractive game as Black. The players castled on opposite sides and the sequence of moves from nineteen to forty-two was a series of tactical blows culminating in a king hunt where White's king was forced to walk down the board and receive the coup de grace. So it was left to the bottom two boards where we were heavily outgraded to try obtain some points and get a result. Unfortunately Ingrid Lauterbach lost a pawn in an endgame against Motoc after she played a quiet c3 Sicilian opening and was eventually ground down after putting up resistance until move fifty-two. Meri Grigoryan as Black played the Schliemann Defence against Paulet and obtained a preferable looking position where she probably would have offered a draw had the other games been clear at that stage. The endgame was one of opposite coloured bishops plus a pair of rooks and Meri sacrificed the exchange to obtain a bind. The problem was that White sacrificed back to obtain what was probably a winning rook and pawn ending though Meri continued to put up resistance and achieved a position of R vs R + BP + RP. After a long struggle Meri eventually lost due to time trouble blunder in a position where the game was drawn. Scotland lost 4-0 to Lithuania and will get a bye in round 6. The good news was that Wales won their first match of the tournament beating Monaco 3 - 1 ! John Trevelyan and Alan Spice beat Rapaire and Iclicki respectively. Richard Jones had an excellent draw against GM Igor Efimov on board one and Tim Kett also drew against Van Hoolandt. Round 4: A day of continued success for the English women's team with a 2½-1½ win against Israel to put them back on 4 points out of a possible 8. The games Ingrid Lauterbach v Igla and Sabrina Chevannes v Atnilov finished first. Ingrid won her game after her opponent sacrificed two pawns for insufficient compensation and eventually she emerged with a winning position with two connected passed pawns in a queen ending. Her opponent resigned on move fifty-three. Sabrina was offered a friendly draw by her higher-rated opponent at around move eight but played on and eventually obtained a draw by repetition at about the same time as Ingrid won her game. Dagne Ciuksyte looked worse on board two after giving up the exchange against Borsuk and Jovanka Houska's position also looked worse against Klinova. However both these games were eventually drawn and thus England achieved a win against Israel.
The English men had a tough match against Sweden. Mickey Adams played the White side of a Tarrasch French against Berg where he looked fairly comfortable for most of the game and eventually ground down the Swede. Gawain Jones drew solidly with Black in a fairly standard English opening against Agrest on board two. Nick Pert had a promising looking position after he played an e5-e6 pawn sacrifice against Cicak's Modern Defence on board three. Black lost the right to castle and had passively placed pieces. However he had several pawns around his king and Black's position proved a difficult nut to crack. Eventually black survived with a central pawn mass and used the two connected centre pawns to win in a rook ending. Mark Hebden survived some pressure as black in a Lopez to eventually obtain a comfortable draw against Carlsson. So the result was a drawn match. Scotland obtained their first win of the tournament beating Luxembourg 2½-1½. Muir beat Berend and Morrison drew with Gengler. A win by Jonathan Grant against Brittner in a game which at one point looked lost sealed the victory. Wales had a bye. At the top end of the tournament Russia continued their onward march in the Men's competition. This time they played Slovenia. Morozevich beat Beliavsky on board one with some interesting maneuvers in a standard Nimzo-Indian. Jakovenko beat Lenic on board four and the remaining two games were drawn to produce a 3-1 victory for Russia. Azerbaijan, who were resting Mamedyarov, beat the Netherlands after Guseinov won with the Black side of a Sicilian Dragon against Van den Doel. In the women's section Russia drew with Hungary on the top table, with all games drawn. This allowed the reigning champions Poland to take the lead with a 3-1 victory over France. Round 3: The English men's team scored a good 3½-½ win against Finland. Michael Adams had to defend the Black side of a queen's gambit for 75 moves but held the position although a pawn down against Tomi Nyback. Gawain Jones won a closed Sicilian with a typical Grand Prix-style mating attack against Agopov. Mark Hebden played an positional exchange sac against Karttunen which gave a lot of compensation. White had a crumpled pawn structure, his king was a little exposed and his rooks couldn't fully activate. Black's pieces soon swarmed in to win material and the game. Stuart Conquest also beat Westerinen in a Tarrasch French where black followed 3 ..c5 by 4 ... c4. White played 5 b3 and soon got an advantage in space and coordination and made use of his extra central pawn, advancing it to the seventh rank to win the game. At the top end of the men's competition Svidler beat Navara in the match Russia v Czech Republic. The remaining games in the match were drawn although the Czechs were outrated, but this ensured another victory for Russia. In the match Azerbaijan v Denmark, Mamedyarov built up a good position when Nielsen played a standard Queen's Gambit Accepted. He finished off with an attractive rook sacrifice winning the game. The rest of the games in the match were drawn giving the number three seeds Azerbaijan victory. Round three also saw the return of world number two Ivanchuk to the Ukrainian team after his victory against Leko in the quickplay match. He drew with Sutovsky in Israel v Ukraine, and the match was also drawn. Scotland avoided a whitewash against Poland with Graham Morrison getting an excellent draw against Bartel, rated some 300 elo points higher. Wales lost 4-0 again, this time to Switzerland. This means they get a bye in round four. In the women's section Russia convincingly beat Bulgaria 3½-½ with Kosteniuk winning against Stefanova on board one. Hungary beat France by the same score. The English women's team won their first match with a 2½-1½ win against Austria.
Jovanka Houska drew fairly quickly as black against Eva Moser. Jovanka had lost against Moser with the Caro-Kann earlier in the year at the European Individual Championships in Dresden and this time the game went into an old variation of the classical Scotch game. When Moser offered a draw after eleven moves Jovanka accepted. However Dagne Ciuksyte lost the white side of a Sicilian after blundering in a position where she was probably winning material. It was left to Meri Grigoryan and Ingrid Lauterbach to win the remaining two games. Meri played a solid Catalan / Queens Gambit setup as white where black exchanged off black squared bishops with Bb4+. Black followed up passively with c6 and soon Meri had a nice advantage in development and space. The game finished with an attractive piece sacrifice which gained the English team's first individual win. With the game scores level it was now down to Ingrid Lauterbach to finish the job. As Black Ingrid played a g6 + d6 + c6 setup followed by an early d5. After mass exchanges Ingrid was left with a knight against a bishop in an ending in which her King obtained easy infiltration. This activity netted Ingrid a pawn and after some knight manoeuvres, the game followed on move sixty. So England beat Austria 2½-1½. Round 2: On board one in both sections the pairing was Armenia v Russia. Armenia are seeded fourth in the men's/open section and tenth in the women's section. In both matches Armenia were beaten 2½-1½. Match results are more important in this competition than in the Olympiad mainly because the match points are are the primary score, and game points are only used as a tie-break. Also the number of rounds is smaller and it is not possible to make up ground by beating weaker teams by a large score. Anyway in the men's match boards one and four were drawn quite quickly. This left Morozevich against Akopian and Sargissian against Alexeev. Morozevich v Akopian was a Nimzo-Indian which after a complex opening and some exchanges reached an opposite coloured bishops scenario with a pair of rooks each. It became clear that Morozevich held the advantage with more active pieces and initiative and Akopian lost the game at move 40. Sargissian held a temporary advantage of good knight versus bad bishop in the other remaining game which however was drawn when several pawns were exchanged. Thus Russia won the match against one of their main rivals. Armenia will have to work their way back into the tournament. The Armenian women also lost narrowly with Kosteniuk beating Danielian to finish first. The remaining games finished 1½ each to give Russia the victory. The Azerbaijani men's team, seeded three, produced another good performance to dispose of Bulgaria. The only decisive game was Kiril Georgiev (BUL) v Gashimov (AZE) which resulted in a win for the Azeri, sacrificing a pawn for some active play as Black in a Benoni. On board one Mamedyarov held on for a draw against Topalov defending an ending of R+N+P versus R+N+2P on the same side.
England couldn't quite get a result against the Czech Republic even though they fielded Michael Adams who had missed the first round. They eventually went down 2½-1½. Gawain Jones lost as Black in a King's Indian, Adams drew with Navara and Pert with Hracek. Mark Hebden tried very hard to win an endgame of Knight + two pawns v Rook against Polak but eventually agreed a draw at move eighty-five. Scotland lost 3½-½ to Austria with Keith Ruxton getting a draw. Wales lost 4-0 to Norway.
The English women also faced disappointment though they had a tough draw against the number five seeds Ukraine. Ukraine had been surprisingly defeated by Azerbaijan in the first round. Boards two, three and four went down and it looked as if we were going to lose 4-0 again because Jovanka Houska was a pawn down with no apparent compensation. However Jovanka's patient defence in a R + N v R + N ending paid off as Lahno made a mistake and suddenly the game was drawn ! This was a small piece of compensation for the first two lost matches and meant that morale wasn't as low as it might have been. Round 1: The tournament is being held in the large Maris Hotel complex in the small town of Hersonissos, about 15 miles east of Heraklion the main port and capital of Crete. The accommodation and food is very good and provided at a reduced rate. However it is still a FIDE stipulation that all players must use the accommodation that is provided at the venue and additionally my wife and myself found that full board must also be purchased. In this case I think there will be few complaints because of the high standard and reasonable price of the hotel, though it might be argued that not giving the players or federations the opportunity to book their own accomodation is unfair. The British teams playing are listed below, each consisting of four players and an optional reserve. Ireland were not represented and Wales and Scotland did not enter a women's team. England Men: 1 GM Adams Michael 2729, 2 GM Jones Gawain C B 2567, 3 GM Pert Nicholas 2539, 4 GM Hebden Mark L 2542, 5 GM Conquest Stuart C 2540, (non-playing captain - GM Peter Wells) England Women: 1 IM Houska Jovanka 2404, 2 IM Ciuksyte Dagne 2411, 3 WIM Lauterbach Ingrid 2124, 4 WFM Chevannes Sabrina L 2073, 5 WFM Grigoryan Meri 2040, (non-playing captain - GM John Emms) Scotland Men: 1 IM Muir Andrew J 2367, 2 FM Ruxton Keith 2314, 3 Grant Jonathan 2261, 4 FM Morrison Graham 2322 Wales Men: 1 FM Jones Richard S 2327, 2 Kett Tim 2257, 3 Morris Charles F 2198, 4 Spice Alan 2170, 5 Trevelyan John 2191 The English, Welsh and Scottish teams all travelled on the same plane and made up most of the passengers.The British Airways flight was in fact delayed by 1½ hours which meant that the teams arrived quite late on Saturday night / Sunday morning. A coach was laid on to transport the players from Heraklion airport to the venue, however just as the coach was ready to leave it was noticed that the Scots players were not present. This was brought to the steward's attention by your correspondent, however the English players seemed quite happy to depart without the Scots! This may have had something to do with the fact that the England v Scotland pairing had already been made for the following day, however it would be unfair to speculate! Anyway it transpired that two Scottish players had had their luggage lost due to the transfer at Gatwick and the delay was caused by them making the necessary arrangements to get their lost luggage sent to the hotel once it was found. The net result was another half an hour delay but it didn't matter too much as the round started at 3.30 pm the next day.
England didn't have anything to worry about in their match with Scotland as the Scots were without any of their four grandmasters and fielded only one IM. However the Scots managed to avoid a whitewash with Graham Morrison holding Stuart Conquest. The final score was 3½-½ to England. Wales lost 4-0 Croatia (on average about 250 elo points stronger).
In the Women's section England disappointingly lost 4-0 to Poland, the reigning champions. The highest ranked male team is Russia with Svidler, Morozevich, Alekseev, Jakovenko. Their women's team features the four Ks - Kosteniuk, Kosintseva T, Kosintseva N, Kovalevskaya. In fact they have a fifth K , Korbut the reserve, who is playing in round two. Another big gun on display is Topalov who looked keen but was held to a draw in the first round by Lithuania's Sulskis. In fact, seven of the world's top ten are playing in the Men's section so the competition is quite interesting; one of the first round clashes was Norway's prodigy Magnus Carlsen against Alexei Shirov playing for Spain resulting in a draw. Another prodigy Fabiano Caruana from Italy drew with the Netherlands' board one Sergei Tiviakov. There were some surprise results in round one. The women's second seeds Georgia lost 2½-1½ to Lithuania with Cmilyte beating Chiburdanidze in what appeared to be a level rook + minor piece ending and the number eighteen seeds Azerbaijan, beat the Ukrainian women, seeded three, by the same margin. In the men's section Montenegro beat Poland 3½-½. Another major surprise from round one were the teams from Bosnia Hercegovina - neither of them turned up and no-one as yet seems to know why! So their opponents, the Ukraine men's team and Greek women's team, both benefited from 4-0 walkovers.
Home Page: www.bcmchess.co.uk |
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The 2007 European Team Championship for men's/open and women's teams takes place in Hersonissos, Crete, from 27 October to 6 November. Official website: 
