Arabidze edges Kiolbasa to win the European Women’s Championship

by Klaus Besenthal
3/30/2023 – The European Women’s Championship came to an end on Wednesday in Petrovac, Montenegro. Since the games on the top boards finished drawn — albeit not without a fight — nothing changed in the standings relative to the previous rounds. Meri Arabidze from Georgia and Oliwia Kiolbasa from Poland tied for first place on 8½/11 points. Arabidze was declared the champion thanks to her victory over Kiolbasa in round 8. | Photos: European Chess Union

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Hard-fought draws

The game that the new European Champion, Meri Arabidze, played against her Georgian compatriot Salome Melia in the last round of the tournament was an exciting affair. It was a draw that could have ended differently, as Arabidze actually had a clear advantage near the end of the encounter.

Oliwia Kiolbasa did not have it easy on the second board, as she played a full-fledged imbalanced game against Greece’s Stavroula Tsolakidou. Meanwhile, on board 4, Aleksandra Maltsevskaya — a Russian-born IM now representing Poland — played fearlessly and defeated 2021 European champion Elina Danielian with black. Maltsevskaya’s win granted her third place in the final standings, as the player with the best tiebreak score out of the four that ended with 8 points.

Incidentally, Georgia, the home country of the European champion, considers itself a European country in terms of its cultural self-image, but due to its location on the southern slope of the Caucasus, many geographers consider it to be part of Asia, either in whole or in large part.

 
 

Final standings

Rk. Name Pts.  TB1 
1 Arabidze, Meri 8,5 1
2 Kiolbasa, Oliwia 8,5 0
3 Maltsevskaya, Aleksandra 8 0
4 Tsolakidou, Stavroula 8 0
5 Melia, Salome 8 0
6 Kulon, Klaudia 8 0
7 Javakhishvili, Lela 7,5 0
8 Garifullina, Leya 7,5 0
9 Toncheva, Nadya 7,5 0
10 Sargsyan, Anna M. 7,5 0
11 Guichard, Pauline 7,5 0
12 Daulyte-Cornette, Deimante 7,5 0
13 Cyfka, Karina 7,5 0
14 Danielian, Elina 7 0
15 Buksa, Nataliya 7 0
16 Socko, Monika 7 0
17 Bivol, Alina 7 0
18 Gunina, Valentina 7 0
19 Osmak, Yuliia 7 0
20 Wagner, Dinara 7 0
21 Mkrtchian, Lilit 7 0
  Vega Gutierrez, Sabrina 7 0
23 Sliwicka, Alicja 7 0
24 Brunello, Marina 7 0
25 Mammadova, Gulnar 7 0
26 Zaksaite, Salomeja 7 0
27 Ovod, Evgenija 7 0
28 Khotenashvili, Bella 6,5 0
29 Bulmaga, Irina 6,5 0
30 Mkrtchyan, Mariam 6,5 0

...136 players

All games - Round 11

 
 

Find all available games from the tournament at Live.ChessBase.com

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Klaus Besenthal is computer scientist, has followed and still follows the chess scene avidly since 1972 and since then has also regularly played in tournaments.