G-Team Novy Bor from Czech Republic defeated Minsk 4,5-1,5 in the final round in the Open section of the European Club Cup to take a clear first place and win the prestigious trophy.

G-Team Novy Bor won six matches, including the clash with the previous champion and top-seeded SOCAR, and tied only Malachite to conclude the event with 13 match points, one point ahead of the chasing pack.

Malachite took the silver medal thanks to the 4-2 win against PGMB-Rostov. Top two players Alexander Grischuk and Sergey Karjakin decided the match.

SOCAR split the points with Saint-Petersburg (six draws) which was enough for the bronze medal on best tie-break: Olympiad-Sonneborn-Berger.

Also on 11 points but with weaker tie-break are Clichy Echecs 92 and Saint-Petersburg.


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Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo won all matches in the first six rounds in Women section of the European Club Cup to secure the title of European Champion with one round to spare.

Monte-Carlo proceeded to beat Fischer Chieti 4-0 in the final round. Chess Club BAS and Ugra played 2-2 in the match of many missed chances on both sides. Ugra confirmed their second place and silver medal. On the shared third place are SHSM Nashe Nasledie and Mika Chess Club with 9 points each. SHSM Nashe Nasledie claimed the bronze thanks to the superior tie-break.

This is the fifth title for CE Monte Carlo, after previously winning in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012.

The club is represented by the reigning World Champion GM Hou Yifan 2609 CHN, former World Championship challenger GM Koneru Humpy 2607 IND, GM Muzychuk Anna 2585 SLO, GM Cramling Pia 2515 SWE and IM Skripchenko Almira 2441 FRA.

/ taken from www.fide.com /

See detailed results of 2013 European Club Cup: men and women

See all-time statistics: men and women

Tagaytay-Philippines whipped Shah Alam, Malaysia 2.5-1.5 in the ninth and final round to capture the title of the 2013 Asian Cities Chess Team Championship also known as Dubai Cup on Saturday.

Grandmaster Oliver Barbosa downed FM Nicolas Chan after 39 moves of Slav defense on Board 1 while GM Darwin Laylo crushed Mohd Nabi Azman Hisham after 28 moves of Gruenfeld defense on Board 4. GM John Paul Gomez drew with Fong Yit San after 60 moves of Queen's Gambit Declined on board 3 to lead his team to victory.

Li Tian Yeoh upset GM Mark Paragua after 55 moves of Caro-Kann defense on Board 2 to provided full point for Shah Alam, Malaysia.

The win gave Tagaytay finished 17 total match points in the event hosted by NCFP secretary-general Rep. Abraham "Bambol" Tolentino, the Fide Asian Zone 3.3 president in close cooperation with the Tagaytay City government, headed by his wife and mayor, Dr. Agnes Tolentino.

Tagaytay pocketed top prize $3,000 plus Dubai Cup trophy.
Shanghai and Wuxi, China came second to third place with 15 points apiece.
Shanghai crushed Sharjah, UAE, 2.5-1.5, while Wuxi nipped Singapore, 4-0.
Both, Shanghai and Wuxi split the combined prizes of $3,000 for 2nd and 3rd placers.
Tournament director is IA Casto Abundo, while supervising arbiter is IA Gene Poliarco.

See detailed results :: 2013 Asian Cities - Dubai Cup ::

Read more at www.fide.com

/ Taken from National Chess Federation of The Philippines /

The history of Chess Olympiads spans back to 1927, yet women's tournament was introduced only in 1957. While traditional division between men's and women's events was, and still it, predominant, technically speaking there are no "men's" Olympiad in chess, since they have always been open for every player, regardless of his or hers sex. This article thoroughly guides through the history of women's participation in the "men's olympiads". And it has never been easy for women to be successful, given there are no gender parities prescribed in chess, and all of them qualified for the national teams only because there were no stronger male players in sight.

Definitely the first woman who threw down the gauntlet to the men's world was Vera Menchik. Born from Czech father and British mother she was raised in the Soviet Union, from where she left for Great Britain. She took her first World Championship title in 1927 with 100% performance and had since outclassed her female opposition in consecutive championship tournaments. (....)

Click here to read full story...

Following the installation of the pgn4web game viewer there is now a unique opportunity for every player to follow the handwritten analyses of the fourth World Chess Champion, the legendary Alexander Alekhine.

There is excellent Alekhine's chess notebooks blog by Denis Teyssou, who deciphered and digitized Alekhine's handwritten notes, so there comes a bunch of five brilliantly annotated games from Buenos Aires 1939 Olympiad, four played by Alekhine himself and the fifth by Canadian then prodigy David Yanofsky.

Alekhine's instructive remarks reflect his way of thinking, in-depth strategic views as well as brief tactical comments provide with fascinating and highest quality chess lecture that will help you improve your chess skills and obtain more profound understanding of the game, no matter if you are rated 1000 or 2600. These PGN's are not available anywhere else! Enjoy, and if you find them useful, please drop us a note.

Vladas Mikenas-Alexander Alekhine ½-½
Fricis Apsenieks-Alexander Alekhine 0-1
Jens Enevoldsen-Alexander Alekhine 0-1
Moshe Czerniak-Alexander Alekhine 0-1

Daniel Yanofsky-Alberto Dulanto 1-0

Remember! While browsing the game C8 - view PGN; E8 - analysis board with engine; H8 - help

Recent months our readers filed numerous complains about the way the game viewer works. Since it used Java it was heavily platform-dependent, causing numerous software conflicts and many people found it impossible to view games due to internal errors. Moreover, games could not be accessed from any of mobile devices.

This is why we have decided to switch to one of best chess browsers online, the pgn4web. It was created by Italian programmer Paolo Casaschi in 2009, and has since gained reasonable reputation among leading chess webmasters. Compared to the old viewer it has many extra features and offers wide range of opportunities:

- no more internal errors
- loads faster, does not need Java, platform independent
- available on mobile devices (iPad, iPhone), many games can be analyzed at the same time
- much more flexible, under constant development
- wide choice of first class graphics
- and more

One of its more intriguing and innovative features is, that clicking on every field makes an effect, e.g. "a1" - go to the start of the game, "h8" - help, "e7" - flip board, "d8" - view PGN, and many more.

Please visit the pgn4web home page
Test how it works: Armenia takes gold in Istanbul 2012

Bosnia and Herzegovina may not be most recognized or richest European nation, yet it has long and fruitful chess tradition (including silver medals in Moscow Olympiad in 1994). Moreover, the federal Union established the all-national league (Premijer Liga) in 2002 when three ethnical chess sub-federations: Federation Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniaks), Federation of Republika Srpska (Serbs) and Federation of Herceg-Bosna (Croats) agreed to create cross-national platform. Each sub-federations runs its own team championship too, effectively making it all-national second level.

The Premijer Liga became one of strongest chess leagues in Europe. With legendary Bosna Sarajevo, four time European Club Cup winners, the event featured a.o. Nigel Short, Teimour Radjabov, Michael Adams, Evgeny Bareev, Suat Atalik, Pavel Eljanov, Alexander Morozevich, Alexei Shirov and the likes. The format has been ten team round robin.

Out of 11 editions, Bosna won on 8 occasions, and Željezničar, Bihać and Široki Brijeg took one single trophy each. The 12th championship is being played right now in Sarajevo.


Summary of Bosnia and Herzegovina Premijer Liga 2002-2012

The Mitropa Cup, an annual chess competition for Central European nations, saw its 32nd edition in its 37 year-old history, as created in 1976 by late Gertrude Wagner. Women participated for the 10th time only, as women's series commenced only in 2002. The tournament became an important benchmark for promising youngsters and future anchors for senior sides. The line-up has been very stable for almost 20 years: Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Italy.

In the men's tournament Croatia were top seeds and indeed won easily, scoring 22/36. With three rounds to go they had clear 4 MP advantage over the chasing pack. GM Saric showed particularly good form. Germany, the only team to avoid match loss, led by Latvian-born GM Fridman took second, while Czech Republic edged out neighbourghs Slovakia on tie-break.

In the women's competition, where newcomers Poland, having replaced France, gave impressive display, Slovakia and Italy were two strongest teams. The latter lost badly to the home side Germany 2-0 and so Slovakia took their first ever Mitropa Cup, with experienced IM Eva Repkova scoring 7.5/9 and Germany, with Filiz Osmandoja giving briliant performance at 8/9, came in second.

See complete results of 2013 Mitropa Cup :: men :: women

Summary of Mitropa Cup 1976-2013 :: men :: women

This herculean task took a lot of arduous work to be completed and hundreds of hours of dilligent seach in the local newspapers. And here it comes - the history of Polish Team Championship spanned close to 90 years. 68 editions, 130+ teams, 1300+ players. And still much more is yet to be found: detailed results are unavailable for almost half of the championships and there is even no crosstable for 1992. Please enjoy and track throughout the history of Polish chess: the golden times of the interwar period, gloomy era of Stalinism, coarse decade of 1960s, then the 1970s boom and more. Don't forget to search for achievements of Polonia Warsaw dream team from the end of 20th century. Enjoy!

What we have done would never be possible without support of many chess enthusiasts from author's homeland, of which we want to mention Tomasz Delega and Michał Bartel from Polish Chess Federation and Przemysław Jahr who provided with complete medal winners list.

WAŻNE! Historyków, działaczy, zawodników oraz miłośników szachów bardzo prosimy o nadsyłanie uwag, uzupełnień, a przede wszystkim biuletynów z brakujących mistrzostw. Skompletujmy razem historię drużynowych mistrzostw Polski, tak jak udało się to z indywidualnymi mistrzostwami.

See complete results of Polish Team Championship 2012

Summary of Polish Team Championship 1929-2012