EU Individual Championships: Jan Werle wins

The European Union Open Championships took place from September 9th to 18th September 2008 in Liverpool, England. The prize fund was 30,000 pounds (38,000 Euros or US $53,000) with a £6,000 first prize. The venue was the World Museum Liverpool, which has extensive collections covering archaeology, ethnology and the natural and physical sciences.

Main Entrance to the venue – the Liverpool World Museum on a sunny Thursday

The Museum "bughouse" was a favourite attraction for spectators and players

The playing hall, all ready for the final round to begin at noon

Top seed Michael Adams plays 1...e5 against Emanuel Berg

A peace accord is signed between the two after just 13 moves

Another favourite son, Nigel Short, who suffered a nasty ringtone loss in round two, does full battle against Lithuanian GM Sarunas Sulskis, whom Nigel demolished in 23 moves. Take a look:

Short,N (2655) - Sulskis,S (2562) [C78]
4th ch-EU Liverpool ENG (10), 18.09.2008
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.a4 Rb8 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Bb6 10.Na3 0-0 11.axb5 axb5 12.Nxb5 Bg4 13.Bc2 Bxf3 14.gxf3 Nh5 15.f4 Qh4

16.Qf3 exd4 17.e5 dxc3 18.bxc3 Bc5 19.Nxc7 Rbc8 20.Na6 Ba7 21.Bf5 Ne7 22.Bxc8 Nxc8 23.Nb4 1-0.

Latvian GM Daniel Fridman, who lives in Germany, came equal 5-15th with 7.0/10 points

The youth: David Howell, 17, the youngest UK grandmaster (right), against GM Erwin L'Ami, 23, of Holland. The fighting draw took 55 moves and left both players with 7.0/10 in 5-15th place.

Two other young talents: GM Jan Werle, 24, from Holland, rated 2591 and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, 18, from France, rated 2681. The game was drawn in 17 moves, Jan Werle won the tournament alone with 8.0/10 points.

Final standings (top – total 141 players)

A famous veteran: Ulf Andersson, who finished with 6.0/10 on place 45

Stuart Conquest, England, vs Thomas Luther, Germany. Luther won in 41 moves and finished at 7.0/10 in place 13. The German GM has a Thalidomide handicap, but plays a mean game of blitz. If you understand German you should check out the Fritz Trainer DVDs he has produced, together with WGM Eva Moser in the German Shop, e.g. on the Grunfeld, Philidor, Aljechin, and other general opening DVDs.

IM Jovanka Houska finished with 6.0/10 on place 42

WFM Alexandra ("Angelic Allie") Wilson scored 50% and finished in place 80

All of the above pictures are from the official site, which has done excellent work to present the tournament visually (and with daily reports). The pictures are mostly captioned, a rare but vitally important aspect of chess reporting. Publishing pictures of dozens of players without any indication of who they are is very close to useless. Take a look at how the organisers in Liverpool presented portraits of all the participants. Every picture has the title, name and rating. The round pictures are also well captioned and of exceptionally good quality. Finally a great deal of effort was put into the daily reports, which you can find here.

Links

• Official tournament site
• All available games in zipped PGN (150 KB)