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The
European Clubs Cup 2003 was held in the city of Rethymnon, Crete. The venue
was the Creta Star Hotel in the city of Rethymnon – and in the Creta Marine
hotel, as we learn from Anna Dergaschova in her report below.
During the tournament a number of players were soring in their performance ratings. We calculated a few in our previous record, causing some readers to doubt the formula we were using. Howard Goldowsky wrote: "If a player goes undefeated or winless, some algorithms take the highest rated opponent and add 400 points or take the lowest rated player and subtract 400 points, respectively. The whole idea behind the is that 400 points is approximately two standard deviations away from your opponent's rating, and for all practical purposes, two standard deviations away from your opponent is the best approximation of ability that can be given for a one game match. Some players on your list did not have perfect 100% scores and they still had unnaturally high performance ratings, so it might have something to do with the specific algorithm used or it might be a bug in the program."
We checked with the programmers who told us that the numbers we published were so intended. The main problem is when someone achieves a 100% score. If a player wins all his or her games it could mean that this player had a performance rating as calculated by the standard formula, but there is no guarantee that this player might be much stronger and win many more games if allowed to do so. Similarly if a player loses all games to opponents we cannot tell how weak he or she is. For this reason in both cases our formula adds or subtracts the randomly determined number of 800 points.
The performance formula used by ChessBase can be found here.
The shock of the tournament came in the penultimate round. In one of the games the following position was on the board – one which would fit very nicely in our tactics section.
Black (to play) has an overprotected pawn, attacked once and defended three times. So what is the problem of removing one of the defenders? Black played 20...Bc8 to attack the white knight on f5, forcing it back to d4 or g3 with a good game for Black. Unfortunately the move overlooks a simple tactical combination, which we are sure you will find in a few seconds.
Admit it, this kind of thing has happened to us all. Any tournament player will give you dozens of similar examples. The shocking part was that it happened not to a lowly club patzer but to Garry Kasparov, the strongest human player of all time. Kasparov at the time had scored four out of four (against very strong opposition) and was sporting a performance rating of well over 3000.
This loss brought Kasparov's performance rating crashing down. But he still had the second highest performance rating (after a final round draw against Ivanchuk) of 2841. The highest was chalked up by Armenian GM and world championship finalist Vladimir Akopian, who scored 5.0/6 with a performance of 2849. Ivanchuk had a performance of 2828 with 5.0/7. Next in the list was Joel Lautier who scored 5.0/6 for a 2826 performance, closely followed by his club mate Peter Svidler, who scored 5.5 out of 7 and performed like a 2825 player.
We should not omit to mention that the Russian GM Vasily Yemelin, rated 2550, scored a perfect 5.0/5, which according to the formula described above, translates to a performance of 3242. It also illustrates the problem of using the system indiscriminately.
The winner of the European Clubs Cup 2003 was the NAO Chess Club of Paris, named after and sponsored by the slightly mysterious Mme Nahed Ojjeh. NAO was represented by the world-class players Alexander Grischuk, Peter Svidler, Michael Adams, Joel Lautier (the first under 2700), Francisco Vallejo Pons, Laurent Fressinet and Etienne Bacrot.
Rk Team NAT + = - MP Pts. BH. 1 NAO Chess Club FRA 6 1 0 13 30 180½ 2 Polonia Plus GSM Warszawa POL 6 0 1 12 29 169 3 Kiseljak BIH 6 0 1 12 29 152 4 Norilsk Nikel RUS 5 1 1 11 26½ 173 5 Ladya-Kazan-1000 RUS 4 2 1 10 28½ 162½ 6 St. Petersburg Lentransgaz RUS 5 0 2 10 27½ 164 7 Beer-Sheva Chess Club ISR 4 2 1 10 25½ 175½ 8 Tbilisi GEO 5 0 2 10 22 182 9 Chess Club Alkaloid Skopje MKD 4 1 2 9 30½ 135 10 Zalaegerszeg-Hydrocomp HUN 4 1 2 9 27 137 11 Tomsk-400-Yukos RUS 3 3 1 9 25 166½ 12 Werder Bremen GER 4 1 2 9 25 162½ 13 GKSz Polfa Grodzisk Mazowiecki POL 4 1 2 9 24½ 146½ 14 VCH Vitebsk BLR 4 0 3 8 26½ 108 15 Corpora Martin SVK 4 0 3 8 25½ 145½ 16 Bosna Sarajevo BIH 4 0 3 8 25 158 17 Momot Chess Club URK 3 2 2 8 24 154 18 Vesnianka Minsk BLR 4 0 3 8 23½ 162 19 Clichy Echecs 92 FRA 4 0 3 8 23 157 20 Barbican Chess Club ENG 4 0 3 8 22 139½ 21 TZ Trinec Chess Club CZE 3 1 3 7 24 132 22 ASA "Shlomo Har-Zvi" Tel Aviv ISR 3 1 3 7 23 139½ 23 Eynatten BEL 3 1 3 7 22½ 163½ 24 Klubi i shahut "Drita" Therandë ECU 3 1 3 7 22½ 110 25 Limhamns SK SWE 2 3 2 7 20½ 141½ 26 Skolernes Skakklub Aarhus DEN 3 1 3 7 20 141 27 Rochade Eupen BEL 3 0 4 6 21½ 119½ 28 Joensuu Chess Club FIN 3 0 4 6 20 128½ 29 Schachfreunde Neukölln 03 GER 3 0 4 6 18½ 160½ 30 Kydon SC Chania Blue Star Ferries GRE 3 0 4 6 18 141 31 Asker Schahhlubb NOR 3 0 4 6 18 133½ 32 Cercle Royal des Echecs de Liege BEL 3 0 4 6 16 166½ 33 SK Glasinac BIH 3 0 4 6 16 164 34 Jyväs-Shakki Jyväskylä FIN 2 2 3 6 15 175 35 Sparkasse Gleisdorf AUT 2 1 4 5 18 150 36 Cardiff Chess Club WAL 2 1 4 5 16½ 111½ 37 ESV Austria Graz AUT 2 1 4 5 15 139 38 OAA Herakleion GRE 2 0 5 4 16½ 130 39 Hellir Chess Club Reykjavik ISL 2 0 5 4 16 140 40 TED Sport Club Ankara TUR 2 0 5 4 15 126½ 41 C.E. "de Sprenger" Echternach LUX 2 0 5 4 13 134½ 42 SV United Chocolates Tschaturanga AUT 2 0 5 4 12½ 138 43 Nidum Liberals Chess Club WAL 1 1 5 3 11½ 135½ 44 Phibsboro Chess Club IRL 1 1 5 3 9 156 45 R.V.H. Chess Club Belfast IRL 1 0 6 2 7 160½
Rk Team NAT + = - MP Pts. BH. 1 Internet CG Podgorica SCG 5 1 1 11 19½ 102
2 NTN Tbilisi GEO 5 1 1 11 18 102
3 Ladya Kazan RUS 3 4 0 10 17 102
4 BAS Beograd SCG 4 1 2 9 17 107½
5 Cannes Chess Club FRA 3 2 2 8 17 95½
6 ULIM Sport Club MLD 3 2 2 8 15½ 98½
7 St. Petersburg Lentransgaz RUS 4 0 3 8 15 99½
8 South Urals Cheliabinsk RUS 4 0 3 8 14½ 95
9 Tomsk-400-Yukos RUS 3 1 3 7 13½ 109½
10 Kristallen SK SWE 3 0 4 6 10 99
11 Maccabi Afek ISR 3 0 4 6 10 91
12 Kydon SC Chania Filmnet GRE 1 1 5 3 8 96
13 Hellir Chess Club Reykjavik ISL 1 1 5 3 7 95½
The official web site provides beautiful tables, results and standings. Click on the rounds in the schedule above to get all the details. [The site currently appears to have problems with the traffic].
Before we forget: the reason 20...Bc8?? was a terrible blunder in the position shown above (taken from the round five game Huzman-Kasparov) is that White can play 21.Rxd5! Black cannot recapture with the knight because of 22.Qxg7 mate, nor can he take with the queen because of the fork 22.Ne7+. White wins two pawns for nothing after 21...Qe8 22.Bxc4. Kasparov resigned. We hope to be able to get some information on how this could happen during a book signing at the London Chess Center later this month.
Crete is beautiful, even in October. It is a place where it probably never rains. The sea is warm and the sun is pleasant. There are hardly any tourists, with lots of space on the 16 km of sandy beach.
I did not know exactly where the tournament was being held, just that it was in Rethymnon. So I flew to Chania and took a taxi. The driver wanted €55 for the trip, but I was able to decipher the sign that said it was just €40 (the Russian and Greek alphabet have have a lot in common). When I drew his attention to this he quickly relented, became very friendly and even bought me a beer at a filling station stop on the road. More importantly he gave me, in broken English, advice on where to stay.
The harbor in Rethymnon
The town had six hotels which could host the event. But mine was not one of them, and nobody knew which one it might be. So after I had settled down I simply got into another taxi and told the driver to take me to the chess tournament. "Chess?" He didn't know the word. "You know, Schach, Echecs, Schachmaty – a game.“ His face lit up: "You want to go to a casio!" No, wrong. So I did a little chess pantomime for him. "Ah, Shaki!" he said, and remembered that there was a tournament in one of two hotels. Turned out in both of them, the men's tournament in the Creta Star and the women's in the Creta Marine. Both were five miles apart, causing serious problems for journalists, especially since the bus transport was very sporadic.
In the playing hall it was astonishing to see so many super-stars (Kasparov, Grischuk, Adams, Ivanchuk, Dreev, Bareev, Morosevich, Bologan, Shirov, Lautier, Gelfand, Rublevski, Khalifman, Bacrot, Korchnoj, etc.) playing in such cramped facilities, without air conditioning and any real space to move around.
GM Mikhail Gurevich has his own way of coping with the heat in the playing hall
There were two playing halls, the lower one was better and cooler, but reserved for the weaker teams. Which caused the stonger players to protest.
Garry Kasparov wants to play downstairs
Heartthrob Vladiskav Tkachiev coping nicely
Elisabeth Pähtz, playing for Greek a men's team
I discovered that the German U18 women's world champion Elisabeth Pähtz was playing for a men's team. Why on earth, I asked her. "I couldn't find a German men't team to play in." She, Kateryna Lahno and Iweta Radziewicz are three cross-gender players in Crete.
The women's teams were playing in the far superior Creta Marine Hotel, with bigger halls, a beautiful hotel park, and the Mediterranean Sea right next to it.
Marie Sebag of France
Moldova's Almira Skripchenko, who lives in France
Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria
