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Nils Grandelius really put the pressure on Vladislav Artemiev as the Swede won his last round game with the black pieces to move to 8½ points. Grandelius grabbed his chances against Benjamin Gledura and won this clutch game with engine-like precision. Meanwhile, Artemiev was suffering a bit against Maxim Rodshtein, but managed to keep everything under control until they finally shook hands on move 46 allowing Artemiev to seal his European Championship victory on tiebreak.
It’s done! Artemiev Vladislav hold a draw against Rodshtein and tie for the first place with Grandelius Nils!
— European Chess Union (@ECUonline) March 29, 2019
The decision of the 1st place comes to tiebreaks! pic.twitter.com/SVjdVwIQ7N
Grandelius already secured qualification to the World Cup in 2018, so he come out swinging with black against Benjamin Gledura with no fear.
After this win, Grandelius would have taken the silver regardless of the outcome on board one, but Rodshtein narrowly missed out on a medal with his draw result; Kacper Piorun had the slightly better tiebreak score (the opponents' average rating minus the lowest).
As expected, many of the top boards ended in relatively quick draws, with 8 points sure to qualify for one of the 22 World Cup spots. E.g.:
Nisipeanu ½ - ½ Piorun (17 moves)
Movsesian ½ - ½ Berkes (15 moves)
Anton ½ - ½ Oparin (36 moves)
Rakhmanov ½ - ½ Cheparinov (22 moves)
Esipenko ½ - ½ Ponomariov (10 moves)
All the players above have qualified to the World Cup, including those who finished with 7½.
Rodshtein certainly took a shot at beating Artemiev, but while he nursed an advantage for much of the game, it was never obviously enough to have real winning chances, especially after Artemiev evacuated his king from the kingside in a remarkable sequence:
Black's king abandons the castle: 28...♚f8 29.h5 ♚e7 30.♕d3 ♜c7 31.♜h2 ♚d7 32.hxg6 hxg6 33.♔b1 ♚c7 34.♔a2 ♚b7 35.♖a3 ♚a7 and the king finds a new home.
However, there was one hidden resource that might have changed the course of the last round, had Rodshtein spotted it:
43.♖h7 ♜c7 44.f5! exf5 45.e6! would have posed Artemiev some serious problems. Instead, the players were already thinking about shaking hands, which they did four moves later.
Artemiev analyses the game with Ivan Sokolov on the live webcast
Congratulations to Artemiev Vladislav (RUS)- the Winner of European Individual Chess Championship 2019, Nils Grandelius (SWE) on silver and Piorun Kacper (POL) who took the bronze medal!
— European Chess Union (@ECUonline) March 29, 2019
The event is officially declared closed by the ECU President, Mr. Zurab Azmaiparashvili. pic.twitter.com/N4tJKe0Po8
Of the players who entered the final round with 7 points, only Eltaj Safarli and Niclas Huschenbeth won their games.
Safarli set a landmine for Matthias Bluebaum that gave the Azerbaijani GM a quick win:
21.♗e5! Bluebaum thought for 16 minutes before taking 21...fxe5? (after 21...♚g7 22.♖f4 fxe5 23.♕xe5+ ♚g8 Black has a tough defence but can survive), and White is on top after 22.♘xe5+ ♚g7 23.♖xd7 ♜xd7 and now not 24.♘xd7 ♛d4= but rather 24.♕g4 and after taking the rook, the e6 pawn falls next.
Romain Edouard vs Huschenbeth was a Semi-Slav Meran with colours reversed. Edouard created a passed b-pawn and was in good position a few moves before falling intro a trap:
Can you spot the knockout blow for Black?
SHOW| Rk. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | ||
| 1 |
|
GM | Artemiev Vladislav | 2736 | 8,5 | 2600 |
| 2 |
|
GM | Grandelius Nils | 2694 | 8,5 | 2595 |
| 3 |
|
GM | Piorun Kacper | 2631 | 8,0 | 2626 |
| 4 |
|
GM | Rodshtein Maxim | 2673 | 8,0 | 2622 |
| 5 |
|
GM | Berkes Ferenc | 2666 | 8,0 | 2595 |
| 6 |
|
GM | Anton Guijarro David | 2643 | 8,0 | 2577 |
| 7 |
|
GM | Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter | 2670 | 8,0 | 2569 |
| 8 |
|
GM | Movsesian Sergei | 2627 | 8,0 | 2539 |
| 9 |
|
GM | Huschenbeth Niclas | 2594 | 8,0 | 2531 |
| 10 |
|
GM | Oparin Grigoriy | 2613 | 8,0 | 2528 |
| 11 |
|
GM | Safarli Eltaj | 2662 | 8,0 | 2515 |
| 12 |
|
GM | Christiansen Johan-Sebastian | 2539 | 7,5 | 2619 |
| 13 |
|
GM | Aleksandrov Aleksej | 2574 | 7,5 | 2604 |
| 14 |
|
GM | Cheparinov Ivan | 2683 | 7,5 | 2603 |
| 15 |
|
IM | Pultinevicius Paulius | 2439 | 7,5 | 2600 |
| 16 |
|
GM | Esipenko Andrey | 2603 | 7,5 | 2591 |
| 17 |
|
GM | Petrov Nikita | 2591 | 7,5 | 2586 |
| 18 |
|
GM | Gelfand Boris | 2655 | 7,5 | 2585 |
| 19 |
|
GM | Gledura Benjamin | 2630 | 7,5 | 2583 |
| 20 |
|
GM | Predke Alexandr | 2611 | 7,5 | 2581 |
| 21 |
|
GM | Rakhmanov Aleksandr | 2629 | 7,5 | 2580 |
| 22 |
|
GM | Bartel Mateusz | 2600 | 7,5 | 2576 |
| 23 |
|
GM | Dubov Daniil | 2703 | 7,5 | 2569 |
| 24 |
|
GM | Lysyj Igor | 2635 | 7,5 | 2564 |
| 25 |
|
GM | Ponomariov Ruslan | 2667 | 7,5 | 2562 |
| 26 |
|
GM | Lupulescu Constantin | 2611 | 7,5 | 2558 |
| 27 |
|
GM | Alekseev Evgeny | 2640 | 7,5 | 2556 |
| 28 |
|
GM | Zvjaginsev Vadim | 2642 | 7,5 | 2554 |
| 29 |
|
GM | Ragger Markus | 2696 | 7,5 | 2552 |
| 30 |
|
GM | Kuzubov Yuriy | 2644 | 7,5 | 2538 |
| 31 |
|
GM | Dreev Aleksey | 2662 | 7,5 | 2536 |
| 32 |
|
GM | Fridman Daniel | 2633 | 7,5 | 2512 |
| 33 |
|
GM | Vallejo Pons Francisco | 2698 | 7,5 | 2500 |
| 34 |
|
GM | Martirosyan Haik M. | 2616 | 7,5 | 2491 |
| 35 |
|
GM | Volokitin Andrei | 2635 | 7,5 | 2479 |
Players scoring 7½ or more
Commentary by GM Ivan Sokolov and GM Adrian Mikhalchishin | European Chess TV on YouTube
