Round 1 usually sees the big-wigs playing the minnows and not many matches are the close run. However here, with just 40 teams and most of them being quite strong there are few that will be easy to defeat. Russia, seeded as no. 1, beat Croatia at board one, but only by the smallest possible margin and Motylev lost badly to Palac. Ukraine beat Spain 3-1 despite Karjakin's loss. Armenia, 4th seeds, drew (remember that match points matter!) vs Lithuania in a four tie match. France hammered Estonia by 3,5-0,5 and we saw emmaculate technique that led Bacrot to an instructive engame win vs Kualots. Georgia with Azmaiparashvili and Jobava, the Calvia hero, barely halved vs Sweden "C" (sic!). Sweden "A" were lucky enough to be seeded in 20th which made possible for them to face Cyprus, by far the weakest of all teams (and, remember, Kotronias plays for Greece now) and were the only team to win with a clear 4-0.

In women's sections, where the matches were for the very first time played at 4 boards, all of seeded teams won. Germany took the lead after 4-0 over Switzerland. Russia and Georgia, top seeds, won their matches 3,5-0,5. Poland and Ukraine dropped 1,5 (but no match point!) vs the Czech Republic and Sweden "A" respectively.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY

Motylev (RUS, 2675) - Palac (CRO, 2566)
Motylev conducted brave Queenside attack in a Sicilian Najdorf. The Black refuted the threats but at the cost of a pawn and chain of three free white pawns at the Queenside. The ending looked well for White but suddenly one of black pawns took one or two steps forwards and suddenly faced promotion. In the diagram position 38. Bf1 leads to a draw: 38. ... Nd2+ 39. Kc1 Nxf1 40. Rxf1 g2 41. Rf6+ Kh5 42. Rf5+ Ng5 43. Nf3 Kg4 44. Rxg5+ Kxf3=. Instead White played 38. Ka2? and lost after 38. ... g2 39. Nf3 Ng5 40. Nh4 act of desperation 40. ... g1=Q 41. Nf5+ Kg6 42. Ne7+ Kh6 43. Nf5+ is it a perpetual check? 43. ... Kh5 of course not. White resigned.



Moiseenko (UKR, 2664) - Lopez Martinez (ESP, 2507)
Seemingly position looks well for Black. He infiltrated white King's position and is two pawns ahead. But in fact he is almost lost already because of underdevelopment of his Queenside pieces and almight pair of white Bishops. 17. ... Bf6 in order to prevent Bg5+ 18. Be3! Qxb2 19. Rb1 Qc3 20. Qd5 Nc6 what else could be done here? 21. c5! Be7? loses immediately, but there was no rescue 22. cxd6 resigns.



Perez Candelario (ESP, 2504) - Karjakin (UKR, 2645)
The wunderkind from Ukraine is clearly in trouble. The e6 pawn is permanently weak and coordination between Queenside and Kingside is poor. White has pair of Bishops and good attacking chances. Look in how tricky way Perez converts these positional advantage into a clear win: 22. ... Nxb6 23. b5! Qc8 24. bxa6! the Knight still under attack 24. ... bxa6 25. axb6 Qb7 26. c5! and game over... 26. ... dxc5 27. Rxd8 Bxd8 28. Bxc5 despite the material balance the "b" pawn costs a piece, and in fact it did on White's 39th move. The game was 73 moves long though and an unusual ending RBBvQ took place. 1-0



Kulaots (EST, 2570) - Bacrot (FRA, 2729)
Can Black win this position? He has huge material advantage but because of "bad" Bishop a simple plan of taking ph4 fails. So his primary task is to push white King far from the key corner to pave the way up for black pawn. If took Bactor as much as 41 moves to complete the task! Detailed analysis of this ending is probably a challenge for a few weeks for a team of world's top GMs, so we will not analyse it here. The zugzwang position was: white Kb1; black Kd1 and Bd4; White's move. After forced 120. Ka2 black King simply stole the pawn and Bd4 blocked white King's way info the corned through h1-a8 diagonal.



Olsson (SWE2, 2416) - Babula (CZE, 2604)
The position is complex and both sides have all kinds of attacking chances. 25. ... Rxc3! the only move. Qxd6 loses because of Rxd6 and a pin on Nd7 26. Nxc3? loses immediately. 26. Qxc7 R3xc7 27. Rxd7 Rxc2+ 28.Kd1= was the only choice 26. ... Qxc3 27. e5 perhaps hoping to annihilate black Bishop, but.... 27. ... Nc5? oups! he missed a win in one move, namely Bf8!! Now White stays alive, although not quite fit. 28. Kb1 Nxb3 29. Ka2 Bf8? too late now! Nc1+ Rxc1 Rc4 was decisive 30.Qd3? better Qxb6 30. ... Nc1+ 31. Rxc1 Qxd3 32. cxd3 Rxc1 -+ White resigned soon and the game must be called "a blunder comedy". The zeitnot at both sides is not an excuse.