European Individual Championship 2019 announced

Skopje in March

Press release

The Government of the Republic of Macedonia*, the Agency for Youth and Sport of the Republic of Macedonia, the Chess Federation of Macedonia under the auspices of the European Chess Union organise the 2019 European Individual Chess Championship. The tournament will take place in Skopje, Macedonia, from March 17th (day of arrival) to March 30th (day of departure) 2019.

It will consist of 11 rounds and will have one rest day (23 March). The games start at 15:00 CET (14:00 UTC, 9:00 EDT), except for the last round when they start at 11:00 CET.

The time control will be 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. Default time is 15 minutes for each round.

The playing hall will be in the new Hotel Hilton on the bank of the Vardar River.

We believe this is a wonderful opportunity to see Skopje, combine chess and tourism and explore one of the pearls of Europe. The tournament is open to all players representing the Chess Federations members of the European Chess Union regardless of their title or rating. There is no limit to participants per federation. Everybody is welcome!

Skopje is the capital of the Republic of Macedonia

Ivan Kocovski,

Press Officer and Secretary of the Chess Federation of Macedonia

Inscriptions: eicc2019mk@gmail.com

Website official: www.eicc2019.mk

Official regulations

Published January 2, 2019 at EuropeChess.org

Only national federations are permitted to send applications.

Registrations shall be done online by filling the registration form and sending it to the organisers' committee. Registration deadline is February 17, 2019. After the registration deadline, the organizers keep the right to reject the registration or charge a penalty for late registration. Before the registration deadline, each registered player is obligated to pay the registration fee of 100 EUR. According to ECU regulations GM, IM, FM, WGM, WIM, and WFM are required to pay a fee of 65€ to European Chess Union, and other players are required to pay 130€person as the entry fee to European Chess Union.

All the players and Accompanying persons are invited to stay in one of the Official Hotels of the Championship: 5* Hotel “DoubleTree by HILTON”, 5* Hotel “Stone Bridge”, 4* Hotel “Russia&Spa” and 4* Hotel “Continental”, all located in Skopje. The official playing venue will be located in Hotel “DoubleTree by Hilton”.

The European Individual Chess Championship 2019 is a qualification event for the FIDE World Cup 2019. According to FIDE regulations and the decision of the ECU Board, 22 players will qualify.

Total prize fund of the event will be 100.000 EUR with 20.000 EUR reserved for the Winner of the event. Together with 20 regular prizes, organisers provided special prizes for the best male and female junior players, best senior players and best women players.

The ECU Dress Code  as in detail described in the ECU regulations, (shorts, caps, slippers, sun glasses, hats-except for religious reasons etc. are not allowed). The ECU anti-cheating guidelines, the FIDE Code of Ethics and the ECU Fair Play Code are valid for all the European Championships and all players, arbiters, organisers & participants shall follow these regulations.

European Individual Chess Championship 2019 - Official Regulations (PDF)

European Individual Chess Championship 2019 - Registration Form (DOCX)

*Editor's note: We use the name "Macedonia" as a shorthand, but recognize the official international name remains (for now) "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)" unless/until the recent June agreement to change it officially to "Republic of Northern Macedonia" is ratified.