Kavalek in Huffington: Mighty Underdogs

Mighty Underdogs of the European Chess Club Cup

By GM Lubomir Kavalek

Miracle on ice turned into miracle on chessboards when Novy Bor defeated the top seed, the Azerbaijani team of SOCAR 3.5-2.5. To pull off such an amazing feat, you need the stars to be perfectly aligned, play well and have some luck. The oil money from Baku was able to buy a powerful lineup, but on that day the top three boards crashed.

The winning G-Team Novy Bor from the left: Robert Cvek, Viktor Laznicka, Zbynek Hracek, Krishnan Sasikiran, Radoslaw Wojtasek (with trophy), Petr Boleslav (captain), Mateusz Bartel, David Navara

On the top board the Czech champion David Navara, always smartly dressed, played the American-born Italian GM Fabiano Caruana, rated among the world's top six players. It was not a duel between David and Goliath, since Navara is known to be a dangerous opponent to anybody. For example, in the past he defeated the world's best two grandmasters, Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian. Caruana decided to take an exchange in the Spanish opening, but his position was not easy to play and his chances to make a draw gradually worsened.

David Navara (Alexei Shirov and Sergey Karjakin in the background)

Viktor Laznicka played well on the third board throughout the event. He scored an important victory against the creative Moscow GM Alexander Morozevich, tying the match against the Russian team of Malachite 3-3.

Jumping from joy: Viktor Laznicka

Against SOCAR, Laznicka outplayed the U.S. champion Gata Kamsky, known to be a tough nut to crack.

The Polish GM Wojtazsek provided the third victory against the former world champion and the current FIDE World Cup winner Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.

The Indian GM Krishanan Sasikiran delivered the team victory by holding a draw against the dangerous Azerbaijani Shakriyar Mamedyarov.

In the final tally G-Team Novy Bor scored 13 match points, undefeated with six wins and one draw. The Russian team Malachite, with Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Morozevich, Alexei Shirov on top boards, drew with Novy Bor and the second Azerbaijani team of Odlar Yurdu, ended second with 12 points. The top seed, the Azerbaijani team SOCAR with Caruana, Teimur Radjabov, Topalov, Kamsky, Mamedyarov, Wang Hao, and Anish Giri finished third on a better tiebreak. They won five matches, lost one and drew one, and finished with 11 points.

With 92 grandmasters participating, it was a formidable event. The top two rated Americans, Hikaru Nakamura and Kamsky, crossed the ocean to play.

Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo with the women's world campion Hou Yifan, Humpy Koneru, Anna Muzychuk, Pia Cramling and Almira Skripchenko finished first in the ECCC women's section, winning all seven matches. It is their fifth victory in the Cup.

The threat was stronger...

As one can see on the fabulous Wojciech Bartelski's web site Olimpbase, the European Club Cup has been played 29 times. At the beginning it was a knockout event. A Swiss system was used in Rhodes to accommodate 53 teams.

In the first Cup in 1976, SG Solingen and Burevestnik Moscow made it to the final and after two days of playing the score was tied 6-6. In the tiebreaking match on the third day four games were quickly drawn and the Cup hung on the last two games. I was facing Boris Gulko who won the Soviet championship a year later. After 20 moves I was contemplating a knight leap.

To paraphrase the old saying, the threat of 21.Ng6 was stronger than the execution and won the Cup.

Images by by Petr Boleslav and Alina Kashlinskaya

Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post

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