Carlsen and Anand to play in European Club Cup in Austria

by André Schulz
9/29/2022 – On Sunday (October 2), the European Club Cup begins in Mayrhofen (Austria). The event consists of an Open Tournament and a Women's Tournament, and some of the world's best player will come to Austria, including Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand. The venue of the tournament is the "Europahaus". | Photo: Google

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The venue for the 37th European Club Cup and the 26th European Women's Club Cup is the Austrian community of Mayrhofen in the Zillertal valley. Originally the competition was to be held here in 2020 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Austrian Chess Federation, but the pandemic put a spanner in the works. After Fügen in 2008 the Austrian Chess Federation is hosting the European Club Cup for the second time.

70 teams have registered for the Open Tournament. With a rating average of 2715 the Superbet team from Romania is the number one seed. Vishy Anand, Richard Rapport and Gukesh play on the top boards, team captain is Ivan Sokolov.

Second seed is the Czech top team of Novi Bor. With Harikrishna and Vidit, Novi Bor also has two Indians on the top boards. Austrian top player Markus Ragger is also on the team.

The Slovenian team from Ljubljana, in fourth place on the seedings list behind Asnieres, has also secured the services of top Indian players: Arjun Erigaisi plays on first board, Nihal Sarin on board 3.

Magnus Carlsen, the (still) reigning world champion, also starts in Mayrhofen. He comes with his team Offerspill, in which chess streamer Eric Hansen is the only non-Norwegian player.

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Hard to believe, but Carlsen has actually only played in Austria once before, as a ten-year-old at a PR event in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.

The host is represented by the clubs "Schach ohne Grenzen", Absam, the local hero Zell/Zillertal and Feffernitz. 

Women's Tournament

For the Women's Tournament 17 teams have registered. The Open Tournament is played on six boards, the Women's Tournament on four. Top favourite is the team of Monte Carlo with Anna Muzychuk, Zhansaya Abdumalik, Elisabeth Pähtz, Pia Cramling and Almira Skripchenko.

All in all, about 700 players (men and women) take part in the event. Russian and Belarusian clubs are excluded from participation because of the war of aggression against Ukraine.

The venue is the Europahaus in Mayrhofen. The tournament management is in the hands of tournament director Johann Pöcksteiner and organizer Werner Csrnko. There will be live broadcasts of the games and a video stream.

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André Schulz started working for ChessBase in 1991 and is an editor of ChessBase News.