Start of the European Championship in Skopje

Two down, nine to go

Over the next two weeks, some 360 players will fight out the title of European Champion over 11 rounds. Not only is the title and ample prize money of EUR €100,000 up for grabs, but also 22 qualifying places for the 2019 World Cup — a 128-player knockout tournament which will, in turn, determine two spots in the Candidates Tournament of 2020.

The starting list contains many strong grandmasters, led by rising Russian star Vladislav Artemiev. The only 21-year-old from Omsk is undoubtedly one of the greatest junior hopes of Russian chess. He gained international notoriety in January by sensationally winning the Gibraltar Masters with a score of 8½/10, leaving behind many well-known stars, including his vanquished opponents Hikaru Nakamura, David Navara and Yu Yangyi.

Norwegian IM Benjamin Haldorsen was no trouble for Artemiev in Round 1 | Photo: eicc2019.mk

The first question in the early rounds of a big open is always: Who made a fool of the favourites? There were a few upsets in round one, among them, Rauf Mamedov and Pavel Eljanov who suffered losses at the hands of Paulius Pultinevicius and Goran Todorevic, each about 250 points lower rated. Evgeny Tomashevsky, Ivan Saric, Francisco Vallejo-Pons, Anton Korobov, Ruslan Ponomariev, Alexey Dreev or Eltaj Safarli got nicked for draws. 

The Fashionable Caro-Kann Vol.1 and 2

The Caro Kann is a very tricky opening. Black’s play is based on controlling and fighting for key light squares. It is a line which was very fashionable in late 90s and early 2000s due to the successes of greats like Karpov, Anand, Dreev etc. Recently due to strong engines lot of key developments have been made and some new lines have been introduced, while others have been refuted altogether. I have analyzed the new trends carefully and found some new ideas for Black.

On the top board, 19-year-old Benjamin Haldorsen from Norway put up a good fight against Artemiev. The following position arose in the extremely trendy Caro-Kann variation with 4...♞f6 5.♘xf6 exf6 and 9...h5.

White is certainly no worse, not even after Artemiev's flashy 23...♞xh3. There followed 24.♔h1 ♛c8 25.♘xc7 ♛xc7 26.♖d4 (26.♖d6!?) and after 26...♛e5 White bravely grabbed two pieces for the rook with 27.♖xe4 ♛xe4 28.f3. However, the endgame with queen, rook and two bishops against queen and two rooks required great precision and in this regard, Artemiev showed his class.

Black won this complicated endgame 

Artemiev continued his strong play in Tuesday's second round, defeating Aeroflot Open winner Kaido Kulaots, whom we recently interviewed.

White has a number of good options, but Artemiev went for the intimidating 18.g4 ♞d7 19.♘xf7! ♚xf7 20.♘xe6 ♚xe6 21.♖e1+ ♞e5 22.dxe5 ♚f7 23.♗xe6 ♚xe7 24.♗xd5 and curiously, after Kulaots gave the rook on a8 we get a similar material balance to the game above. Once gain Artemiev handled the rook better — of course it helps to have three extra pawns! 

Chess Endgames 3 - major piece endgames

The third part of the endgame series tackles queen endings, rook against minor pieces, queen against rook and queen against two rooks. Queen endings are not nearly as mysterious as they appear at first sight. Knowing a few rules of thumb and principles will make things very much easier for you.
Over 7 hours video training.

At number two on the starting list, with an Elo of 2705, is Evgeny Tomashevsky, a player who has been in the business a bit longer. Exactly ten years ago, Tomashevsky was once able to win the European Championship. Now 31 years old, he's known for his calm, positional playing style and was part of the Russian Olympic team in Baku in 2016. But in the first round he dropped a half point to IM Max Warmerdam. Tomashevsky was unable to gain any advantage with the white pieces against the 18-year-old from the Netherlands and finally offered a draw on almost full board draw.

Tomashevsky rebounded in the second round, however, getting a black win. 

Ruy Lopez Powerbook 2018

Once again we have used exclusively games from the engine room on playchess.com for the Ruy Lopez Powerbook 2018. The tremendous number of 1.8 million games in the Ruy Lopez allows meaningful statistical analyses even amongst side variations.

Tomashevsky (right) analysing with IM Juraj Druska | Photo: eicc2019.mk

IM Lawrence Trent reviewed the losses by Eljanov and Mamedov in his Weekly Show yesterday: 

The Bombastic Bird's - an energetic and exciting repertoire after 1.f4

Welcome to the Bombastic Bird's, a revolutionary repertoire for one of the most enterprising and underrated openings in chess theory (1.f4). In this series, IM Lawrence Trent uncovers a number of groundbreaking theoretical novelties and new ideas that will soon have scorners of this romantic system regretting they ever doubted its soundness.

Lawrence is live most Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST / 5 pm BST time / 12 Noon EDT

The Belarussian battle of round two resulted in another 2700 upset, as Andrey Zhigalko took down Vladislav Kovalev (who won the Tata Steel Challengers in January) after the latter when for an adventurous kingside attack that came up short.

23...♞f4 was needed her to keep the pressure on, but Kovalev's 23...h2 allowed Zhigalko to launch a counter attack: 24.f4 ♞xf4 25.♗f1 h4 26.♗xe5 dxe5 27.♕g4 when White is firmly on top. He won in 48 moves.

That win leaves Zhigalko nominally in the lead, one of 39 players with a perfect 2/2 score.

Standings after Round 2 (top 25)

All games

Marco Baldauf and Andre Schulz contributed to this story

Links

• Official site
• Full results (Chess-Results)