ECC 07: Two perfect scores

by Alejandro Ramirez
9/20/2014 – The European Club Cup has come to an end and there was no doubt which team was best in each section. In the Open SOCAR saw another great Topalov performance as his lone victory against Svidler was enough for the Azeri team to win every single match they played. Also in a perfect 14-0 run the Georgian team of Nona beat SHSM allowing Monte-Carlo to grasp at second place.

ChessBase 17 - Mega package - Edition 2024 ChessBase 17 - Mega package - Edition 2024

It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.

More...

2014 European Club Cup

This mega swiss tournament brings together the top teams from the top leagues in Europe to compete for the European Club Champion title. Most teams have reinforcementes specifically for this event, while others send their local players that have served them throughout the seasons.

Many 2700+ players are participating in the event. The tournament is a seven round swiss system that coincides with the Bilbao Grand Slam Finals, for which we will have separate reports.

Tha matches in the Open section will be six-on-six, while on the Women's section will be four-on-four.

Open Section

1 SOCAR Azerbaijan (1) 3.5 2.5 SPB (4)
1.1 2784 Topalov, Veselin 1 0 Svidler, Peter 2732
1.2 2758 Giri, Anish ½ ½ Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2755
1.3 2717 Radjabov, Teimour ½ ½ Vitiugov, Nikita 2742
1.4 2730 Wang, Hao ½ ½ Movsesian, Sergei 2663
1.5 2673 Korobov, Anton ½ ½ Matlakov, Maxim 2694
1.6 2655 Safarli, Eltaj ½ ½ Efimenko, Zahar 2641
2 G-Team Novy Bor (5) 4.5 1.5 SHSM Nashe Nasledie (6)
2.1 2736 Wojtaszek, Radoslaw ½ ½ Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2710
2.2 2722 Navara, David 1 0 Morozevich, Alexander 2731
2.3 2725 Harikrishna, P. 1 0 Dreev, Aleksey 2662
2.4 2675 Laznicka, Viktor ½ ½ Grachev, Boris 2673
2.5 2680 Sasikiran, Krishnan 1 0 Najer, Evgeniy 2646
2.6 2638 Hracek, Zbynek ½ ½ Dubov, Daniil 2614
3 Obiettivo Risarcimento (2) 1.5 4.5 Malakhite (3)
3.1 2801 Caruana, Fabiano ½ ½ Karjakin, Sergey 2777
3.2 2782 Nakamura, Hikaru ½ ½ Grischuk, Alexander 2789
3.3 2768 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 0 1 Leko, Peter 2734
3.4 2729 Bacrot, Etienne 0 1 Shirov, Alexei 2701
3.5 2712 Fressinet, Laurent ½ ½ Motylev, Alexander 2686
3.6 2626 Georgiev, Kiril 0 1 Lysyj, Igor 2684
4 En Passant (29) 0.5 5.5 Odlar Yourdu (7)
4.1 2528 Nijboer, Friso 0 1 Durarbayli, Vasif 2614
4.2 2424 Bosboom, Manuel ½ ½ Mamedov, Rauf 2660
4.3 2382 Vedder, Henk 0 1 Bajarani, Ulvi 2483
4.4 2392 Peng, Zhaoqin 0 1 Guseinov, Gadir 2615
4.5 2286 Vedder, Richard 0 1 Abasov, Nijat 2527
4.6 2205 De Graaf, Dick 0 1 Mamedov, Nidjat 2624
5 SG Solingen (9) 4.5 1.5 Haladas VSE (13)
5.1 2657 Ragger, Markus 1 0 Ruck, Robert 2572
5.2 2630 L'Ami, Erwin ½ ½ Nemeth, Miklos 2494
5.3 2619 Sandipan, Chanda ½ ½ Kovacs, Gabor 2463
5.4 2470 Andersen, Mads 1 0 Nagy, Gabor 2414
5.5 2435 Wegerle, Joerg ½ ½ Csonka, Attila Istvan 2339
5.6 2401 Schaefer, Markus 1 0 Pergel, Laszlo 2241

Only the top 5 matches are shown

A lone win by Topalov, who has his third great result in a tournament in a row, gave the win to SOCAR over SPB. The game could have ended in a draw but Svidler completely miscalculated the opposite colored bishop endgame. The move 43...Kg7 would probably have held the game, simply going toward the center, but instead he chose to solidify his h-pawn with h4 and that lost a crucial tempo. The rest of the games were hard fought draws.

Radjabov-Vitiugov was one of the five draws in SOCAR-SPB

Novy Bor beat SHSM by quite a margin, 4.5-1.5. Morozevich lost a position in which he was simply clearly better against Navara and the same happened to Dreev against Harikrishna. A series of mistakes of Najer against Sasikirian put the nail in the coffin for SHSM.

Giri gained four places in the live rating list and is now seventh in the world!

Malakhite took full advantage of these results as they had a great match against Obiettivo Risarcimento. With draws on the first two boards between Caruana-Karjakin and Grischuk-Nakamura, Malakhite struck a win in both MVL-Leko and Shirov-Bacrot with very good display of technique. Lysyj made it look easy against Georgiev and that gave the Russian team a great 4.5-1.5 victory, allowing them to clinch third.

Most teams had identifying shirts or uniforms

Topalov looking at Caruana-Karjakin from Obiettivo vs. Malakhite

Final Standings

Rk ID Team Fed Games + = - Pts MatPnt SB1_MG GamPnt
1 1 SOCAR Azerbaijan AZE 7 7 0 0 14 14 265.5 31
2 5 G-Team Novy Bor CZE 7 6 0 1 12 12 233 32
3 3 Malakhite RUS 7 5 1 1 11 11 197.5 25.5
4 7 Odlar Yourdu AZE 7 4 2 1 10 10 206.5 28
5 9 SG Solingen GER 7 4 2 1 10 10 181 27
6 6 SHSM Nashe Nasledie RUS 7 5 0 2 10 10 178 27.5
7 15 Minsk BLR 7 5 0 2 10 10 176.5 26
8 11 Ladya RUS 7 4 2 1 10 10 164 24
9 4 SPB RUS 7 4 1 2 9 9 203 25.5
10 2 Obiettivo Risarcimento ITA 7 4 1 2 9 9 191 26.5

Round Seven Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Women's Section

1 Batumi Chess Club "Nona" (4) 2.5 1.5 SHSM Nashe Nasledie (8)
1.1 2566 Dzagnidze, Nana 1 0 Gunina, Valentina 2540
1.2 2507 Khotenashvili, Bela ½ ½ Kosteniuk, Alexandra 2543
1.3 2464 Melia, Salome 1 0 Girya, Olga 2476
1.4 2426 Batsiashvili, Nino 0 1 Kashlinskaya, Alina 2433
2 Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo (5) 3 1 Rishon Letzion (3)
2.1 2663 Hou, Yifan 1 0 Efroimski, Marsel 2331
2.2 2540 Lagno, Kateryna 1 0 Madivani, Maka 0
2.3 2516 Cramling, Pia 1 0 Vardi, Shlomit 1957
2.4 2430 Skripchenko, Almira 0 1 Federovski, Adi 1937
3 SC Bad Konigshofen (6) 2.5 1.5 Ladya (2)
3.1 2467 Paehtz, Elisabeth 1 0 Galliamova, Alisa 2472
3.2 2457 Mkrtchian, Lilit ½ ½ Zatonskih, Anna 2469
3.3 2373 Savina, Anastasia 1 0 Atalik, Ekaterina 2421
3.4 2261 Schoene, Maria 0 1 Zaiatz, Elena 2401
4 Herzliya Chess Club (7) 0 4 Ugra (1)
4.1 2133 Len, Irina 0 1 Pogonina, Natalija 2482
4.2 2047 Yakovleva, Tatiana 0 1 Kovanova, Baira 2399
4.3 1871 Lian, Marina 0 1 Guseva, Marina 2352
4.4 1891 Haitovich, Avital 0 1 Shadrina, Tatiana 2327

Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo won handedly against Rishon Letzion, despite a big upset on board four where Skripchenko lost to Federovski. The German team of SC Bd Kongshofen finished with a nice last round surprise against Ladya while Ugra, as usual, overwhelmed Herzliya Chess Club.

The match of the day was certainly between Nona and SHSM. The Russian team had to win to secure second while a draw would let the second place be decided by tiebreaks. At the end this would be irrelevant as Nona took yet another win and convincingly won the tournament by vanquishing every single one of their opponents. An amazing performance from the Georgian team who very deservedly take the title.

Valentina Gunina strolling by the top Open section boards

Rishon Letzion won one match (against Herzliya) and obtained 4.5 game points

Ugra didn't have quite enough points to debunk SHSM from third

Kateryna Lagno was not in her best shape this tournament. Here she is overlooking Paehtz vs. Galliamova, a game that ended in favor of the German player.

Dzagnidze's amazing 2737 performance was a big reason for Nona's victory. However she was still 12 performance rating poitns behind Hou Yifan, who took best first board.

Melia Salome also had a good event

Winners! Nona Chess Club from Georgia

Final Standings

Rk ID Team Fed Games + = - Pts MatPnt SB1_MG GamPnt
1 4 Batumi Chess Club "Nona" GEO 7 7 0 0 14 14 108 20.5
2 5 Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo MNC 7 5 0 2 10 10 104 19
3 8 SHSM Nashe Nasledie RUS 7 4 1 2 9 9 97 18
4 1 Ugra RUS 7 4 0 3 8 8 83.5 17
5 6 SC Bad Konigshofen GER 7 3 1 3 7 7 84 16
6 2 Ladya RUS 7 3 0 4 6 6 83 15.5
7 3 Rishon Letzion ISR 7 1 0 6 2 2 16.5 4.5
8 7 Herzliya Chess Club ISR 7 0 0 7 0 0 0 1.5

Round Seven Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games. Some games unavailable.

Photos by Manu de Alba from Bilbao's Facebook site

Links

The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

Grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez has been playing tournament chess since 1998. His accomplishments include qualifying for the 2004 and 2013 World Cups as well as playing for Costa Rica in the 2002, 2004 and 2008 Olympiads. He currently has a rating of 2583 and is author of a number of popular and critically acclaimed ChessBase-DVDs.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register