7th
European Individual Championships
The Seventh European Individual Chess Championships are taking place from
April 4th to 17th in Kuşadası, Turkey. It is organised by the Turkish
Chess Federation under the auspices of the European Chess Union.
There are 85 GMs, 37 IMs and 6 FMs from 36 countries in the Men Individual
Chess Championship, and 2 GMs, 20 IMs, 1 FM, 27 WGMs, 22 WIMs and 10 WFMs from
27 countries in the Women Individual Chess Championship.
The total prize fund, including amateur and professionals categories, is €78.000.
A total of 16 players from the men's section and 12 from the women's will qualify
for the next cycle of the FIDE World Cup. The players are staying in the five-star
Korumar Hotel, located on
one of the best beaches of Kuşadası. It is also the venue of the
tournament.

Kuşadası (pronounced koo-sha-da-se) is on the western coast of
Turkey.

The beautiful seaside resort town of Kuşadası – further
details here

Big firework display at the start of the event
The event is being covered on the web site of the Turkish
Chess Federation, which has all the basic information. There is a special
tournament site programmed entirely in Flash (and not for the faint-hearted).
You can view the games live there, download a PGN file, and access pairings,
standings and cross tables in Excel. Daunting. As of writing only the games
of round one are available. As soon as the ones of round two are there we will
add them to the file given at the bottom of this page.
The games are also being transmitted live on the Playchess
server, thanks to the kind cooperation of the TCF, the organisers and our very
virtuoso SysOp Holger Lieske, who somehow manages to relay scores of games
using just two PCs. Since a very large number of games are running
at the same time, you might want to try the following Fritz 9 feature to view
the best one.

In the broadcast room click "Best Game" (or press F10). This normally
loads the top game in any room, but here it will load the six best games simultaneously
in the board window. These are games marked by the broadcaster as being especially
interesting.

In the above picture you can see how the Fritz 9 client has loaded six top
games from round one. In this mode you can switch on an engine and jump from
board to board to see where the action is. Whenever you are on a board the
chess engine will start to analyse that position. In our picture we are on
the Ctivan-Ivanchuk game, which Fritz tells us is a "Queen's Gambit Declined,
Semi-Slav without ...Nf6". Black has two knights for a bishop (White is
pondering on how to recapture the knight on g3).
The Fritz 9 engine shows a 0.39 advantage for Black, after 1 min 22 seconds
of thought at a search depth of 15/36 (all moves checked to 13 ply, some lines
followed to 36 ply). If you get really interested in one particular game then
you can double-click it, which makes it fill the entire board area. Double-click
again to get back to the six board overview. If you think this Fritz 9 feature
is really neat, and the author really cool for telling you about it, send us
an applause on the Playchess server. Also to Holger Lieske for broadcasting
and marking the games.
Picture Gallery
By Frits Agterdenbos

Hotel Korumar in Kuşadası, where the players are staying –
and playing

The badges are ready, the participants can enter

Gery Walsh, member of the Appeals Commitee, gets a mugshot taken for the
badge

The tournament poster

Technical Meeting with Boris Kutin (ECU President, Appeals Commitee), Ali
Nihat Yazici (TCF President) and Tahsin Aktar (General Coordinator)

The playing hall of the Men's section
Top twenty players (rated 2600+)
|
Name |
Nat |
Title |
Elo |
1 |
Ivanchuk Vassily |
UKR |
GM |
2723 |
2 |
Georgiev Kiril |
BUL |
GM |
2677 |
3 |
Naiditsch Arkadij |
GER |
GM |
2664 |
4 |
Moiseenko Alexander |
UKR |
GM |
2662 |
5 |
Izoria Zviad |
GEO |
GM |
2647 |
6 |
Jobava Baadur |
GEO |
GM |
2646 |
7 |
Gashimov Vugar |
AZE |
GM |
2644 |
8 |
Gurevich Mikhail |
TUR |
GM |
2643 |
9 |
Delchev Aleksander |
BUL |
GM |
2640 |
10 |
Sakaev Konstantin |
RUS |
GM |
2637 |
11 |
Fressinet Laurent |
FRA |
GM |
2633 |
12 |
Atalik Suat |
TUR |
GM |
2627 |
13 |
Galkin Alexander |
RUS |
GM |
2618 |
14 |
Fedorov Alexei |
BLR |
GM |
2614 |
15 |
Guseinov Gadir |
AZE |
GM |
2610 |
16 |
Lutz Christopher |
GER |
GM |
2608 |
17 |
Kozul Zdenko |
CRO |
GM |
2606 |
18 |
Socko Bartosz |
POL |
GM |
2606 |
19 |
Kacheishvili Giorgi |
GEO |
GM |
2605 |
20 |
Iordachescu Viorel |
MDA |
GM |
2601 |

Top seed Vassily Ivanchuk

Zviad Izoria of Georgia

Top Turkish GM Suat Atalik

Playing for Turkey: Mikhail Gurevich

Moiseenko Alexander of Ukraine

Samba Cup and Aeroflot winner Baadur Jobava and his mother Liana Chkhapelia

The first move on the board 1 game Ognjen Cvitan vs Vassily Ivanchuk
Top sixteen women players (rated 2400+)
|
Name |
Nat |
Title |
Elo |
1 |
Stefanova Antoaneta |
BUL |
GM |
2502 |
2 |
Dembo Yelena |
GRE |
IM |
2464 |
3 |
Mkrtchian Lilit |
ARM |
IM |
2453 |
4 |
Dzagnidze Nana |
GEO |
IM |
2442 |
5 |
Pogonina Natalija |
RUS |
WGM |
2440 |
6 |
Paehtz Elisabeth |
GER |
IM |
2438 |
7 |
Sebag Marie |
FRA |
IM |
2434 |
8 |
Gaponenko Inna |
UKR |
IM |
2430 |
9 |
Khurtsidze Nino |
GEO |
IM |
2426 |
10 |
Zhukova Natalia |
UKR |
WGM |
2425 |
11 |
Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan |
GEO |
IM |
2423 |
12 |
Danielian Elina |
ARM |
IM |
2422 |
13 |
Kachiani-G Ketino |
GER |
IM |
2421 |
14 |
Muzychuk Anna |
SLO |
WGM |
2419 |
15 |
Javakhishvili Lela |
GEO |
IM |
2410 |
16 |
Peptan Corina-Isabela |
ROM |
IM |
2408 |
Pictures from the women's section to follow in the next report (we promise).
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Frits Agterdenbos,
45, lives in Heemstede, not far from Amsterdam, and was one of the leading
chess photographers in the eighties. From 1979–1991 his pictures
appeared in several magazines, including New in Chess, Schakend Nederland,
Inside Chess, BCM, Chess, Europe Echecs and Schach. In
1984 his Dutch book “64 Schaakportretten” (in English “64
Chess Portraits”) was published. In 1991 he “retired”
as a chess photographer to finish his studies and in 1997 he received
a diploma as an insurance mathematician (actuary). Since 1998 he has
been self-employed, working under the company name “Acturix”,
which is his actuarial consultancy firm.
In 2005 he picked
up his old passion, becoming again a chess photographer, and publications
show he still knows how to handle his camera. Now he combines his insurance
job and chess photography. You will find his photos on Chessbase.com,
Schaakbond.nl, and Schaaklog.nl, and many more websites
and magazines. You can contact him under f.agterdenbos(at)acturix.com
(insert "@" at the appropriate place).
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