The 31st European Club Cup and the 20th European Club Cup for Women finished in Skopje, FYR Macedonia, with the closing ceremony held in hotel Aleksandar Palace.

Russian team Siberia became the winner of the Men’s tournament after the equal score against one of the biggest rivals Obiettivo Risarcimento Padova in the last round.

The members of the winning team are:
GM Vladimir Kramnik (RUS 2777)
GM Levon Aronian (ARM 2784)
GM Alexander Grischuk (RUS 2774)
GM Li Chao (CHN 2750)
GM Wang Yue (CHN 2724)
GM Anton Korobov (RUS 2700)
GM Dmitry Kokarev (RUS 2603)
GM Dmitry Bocharov (RUS 2560)

Siberia scored 13 match points, with 6 won matches and 1 drawn. Last year’s champion SOCAR (AZE) took silver with 11 match points and better tie-break than Mednyi Vsadnik (RUS), who took bronze, and Padova, who eventually finished 4th.

In Women’s section Chess Club Nona from Georgia defended the title with all 7 victories and 14 match points. The first seed triumphed convincingly, without any surprises and took home another beautiful trophy.

The members of the winning team are:
GM Dzagnidze Nana (2573 GEO)
GM Khotenashvili Bela (2502 GEO)
IM Javakhishvili Lela (2463 GEO)
IM Batsiashvili Nino (2500 GEO)
WIM Mikadze Miranda (2245 GEO)

Second place went to the domestic team Gambit Asseko SEE with 11 match points, and the third lace went to Russian team Ugra with 10 match points.

The European Chess Club Cup was held in Skopje/FYR Macedonia, 17-25 October, 2015, in Hotel Aleksandar Palace. Both events were held in 7 rounds, played in the Swiss system in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules. The organizer of the events were Municipality Karpos (Skopje) and Chess Club “Gambit Asseko SEE”, under the auspices of the European Chess Union. The Chief Arbiter was IA Ashot Vardapetyan (ARM).

/ taken from www.fide.com /

See detailed results of 2015 European Club Cup: open and women

See all-time statistics: open and women

The national team of China continued its global domination by securing the gold medal at the FIDE World Team Chess Championship in Tsakhkadzor, having previously won the 2014 Chess Olympiad in Tromso.

Earlier, China had three silver medals from the World Team Championships in 2005, 2011 and 2013. In 2005 they were on the brink of winning the gold, before being overtaken by Russia in the dramatic last round. The next generation of players took a leap ahead, with Bu Xiangzhi being the only member of the team both in 2005 and 2015.

Ukraine was in contention for the first place, but a couple of setbacks in the final rounds forced them to take consolation in the team silver medal. The host country Armenia had a shaky start, but they went on to win four matches in the last five rounds to claim the bronze medal.

/ taken from chessdom.com /

View the most bizarre game from the tournament:




World Team Championship 2015 full results
World Team Championship summary 1985-2015

With 17 match points out of nine games Georgia was the glorious winner at the 2015 Women's World Team Championship in Chengdu, China. Russia won the silver medals; China took bronze.

The Georgian team, fourth-seeded behind Russia, Ukraine and China, consisted of GM Bela Khotenashvili (2513), IM Lela Javakhishvili (2481), IM Salome Melia (2459), IM Nino Batsiashvili (2473) and the revelation of the recent World Women's Championship, IM Meri Arabidze (2374).

Especially the first and last board contributed strongly to the success. Khotenashvili scored a splendid 7½/9 (the best score of anyone in Chengdu) with three draws and six wins, good for a 2704 performance rating. Arabidze didn't lose either and scored 6/7 (a 2615 TPR).

Georgia started 2-2 against Russia, and then defeated Egypt 4-0 and Poland 2½-1½. This was all covered in FM Mike Klein's first report on the tournament. By now you will have figured out that Georgia finished with six more wins, and that Ukraine and China were among the victims!

Ukraine was beaten 2½-1½ in round five. With draws on boards two, three and four, the key game was GM Bela Khotenashvili versus GM Anna Muzychuk, where Black's opening wasn't great. In a slightly worse position, Muzychuk's 12...Ng4 just dropped a pawn. She would never see it back.



Unlike its male counterpart in Armenia, the Russian team still had a small chance to win gold before the last round. For that, Georgia needed to lose against host country China, but instead it won.

Also in this match three boards were drawn and this time it was IM Meri Arabidze who sealed the deal. We'll surely hear much more from this big talent in the future!



Russia remained unbeaten but after its 2-2 tie with Georgia on the first day, it also played 2-2 with Armenia in round two and against Kazakhstan, as well, in round seven. Russia beat bronze medal winners China in round three. Besides Khotenashvili, IM Lilit Mkrtchian (Armenia, 2443) and WGM Lei Tingjie (China, 2444) had excellent tournaments. Both scored 6.5/9, with 2562 and 2489 TPRs respectively.

The new world champion, IM Mariya Muzychuk, played a solid tournament with three wins and six draws. She was in trouble against USA's Katerina Nemcova but held the draw. The following win was quite interesting:



Team USA had a rough time in China. After its 3-1 win over Egypt (who lost nine times), the USA would play 2-2 with Poland, Kazakhstan and Armenia and lose five times, finishing ninth. However, without GM Irina Krush and IM Anna Zatonskih, the team was also ninth-seeded.

The tournament took place April 19-28 and was organized by the Chinese Chess Association, FIDE and the Chengdu Municipal Government. Alongside, FIDE's first Quarter Presidential Board Meeting was held.

/ Written by Peter Doggers for chess.com /

See full results of 2015 Women's World Team Championship
See all-time summary & statistics

Big favourite Socar from Azerbaijan confirmed this evening all the predictions, getting the overall European title this evening on the last day of Bilbao Chess 2014. Batumi from Georgia surprised those present by winning the women’s European title, even if they were not initially regarded as strong candidates.

Socar started out as favourite owing to the strong lineup with which they were participating in this year’s European Club Cup, including Topalov and Mamedyarov, two of the world’s top 10 players.

The Bilbao Chess 2014 honour roll was completed at the Grand Slam Masters Final with five-times world champion Viswanathan Anand’s victory. As well as getting the title, the Indian player did his personal best ever in the five times he took part in the Bilbao competition. However, he lost his last game against Aronian, the reigning champion until this evening. With this victory at the Masters Final, Anand, who is also preparing for the World Championship rematch against Magnus Carlsen, who took the title away from him a few months ago, adds to his résumé the one title that was missing so far. The Bilbao Grand Slam Masters Final is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world, as well as one of the few in reaching level 22, the highest in terms of competitive quality in the chess sphere. Vallejo got his first victory today, this time over Ponomariov.

During the Bilbao Chess 2014 closing ceremony, Bilbao mayor Ibon Areso handed over the trophy and medals to the new European champion. Socar thus replaces Czech G-Team Novy Bor, who surprisingly won the title last year in Rhodess. Gabino Martínez de Arenaza, Provincial Director of Tourism and Foreign Trade, proclaimed Anand winner of the Bilbao Masters Final 2014.

The Indian Grandmaster succeeds his opponent today, Levon Aronian, in the Masters Final title. Aronian has won the title twice, the last one in 2013, just like number 1 in the world ranking and reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen. The list of winners includes Veselin Topalov from Bulgary, who won the first edition back in 2008 (and was also proclaimed winner with Socar in the teams tournament), and his great rival and “worst enemy” Vladimir Kramnik from Russia, who won in 2010.

Players with the best performances on individual boards were also awarded. In the women’s section, the prizes went to Hou Yifan (board 1), Alexandra Kosteniuk (board 2), Anastasia Savina (board 3) and Marina Guseva (board 4). In the Open section, the prizes went to Fabiano Caruana (board 1), Veselin Topalov (board 2), Harikrishna Pentala (board 3), Anish Giri (board 4), Teimour Radjabov (board 5) and Mateusz Bartel (board 6).

The Bilbao Chess 2014 gathered the world chess elite in Bilbao between 14 and 20 September. Participating were 9 of today’s top 10 players in the world and most of the world’s best grandmasters, divided in 60 teams coming from 30 European countries.

/ taken from www.ecuonline.net /

See detailed results of 2014 European Club Cup: men and women

See all-time statistics: men and women

Chess life in Czechoslovakia was substantial to the development of the game in Central Europe from the very beginning. During the Mid-War period (1919-1939) the Czechoslovak team was one of World's strongest to win no less than two Olympiad medals, led by phenomenal Salo Flohr, who later sought asylum in the Soviet Union. There was no national team championship and the Czechoslovak series commenced only in 1947. Vítkovické železárny (Vitkovice Steel Factory) won the 8 team round robin. There were 46 editions all in all until the ultimate disintegration of the state in 1993. Most wins were recorded by Slavoj Vyšehrad (7x) and Dynamo Prague (6x). Only three titles of 46 were taken by Slovak sides (Slovan Bratislava in 1963 and 1970; Lokomotiva Trnava in 1986). Major successes in team competitions include bronze medal at the European Team Championship in 1957 and silver medal at the Chess Olympiad in Lucerne in 1982.

Once the country split into Czech Republic and Slovakia the leagues part their was too. Of 14 sides from last Czechoslovak league the Czech teams were dominant at 10 to 4. The newly created Czech Extraliga (Česká šachová extraliga) was a 10-team round robin and this format has been kept until today (in 1995 the league was enlarged to 12 teams). The league is usually played in six weekend sessions from late autumn until April. Two bottom teams are relegated to respective second level divisions. Interestingly, much weaker women's league is open for Czech and Slovak teams.

This strong competition saw variety of top players, including grandmasters Dreev, Harikrishna, Wojtaszek, Ponomariov, Rogers, Sasikiran, Shirov and more. Most successful teams are Rapid Pardubice, Lokomotiva Brno, earlier DA Prague and A64 Grygov. Least but not last, Novy Bor team, scoring six league wins to have dominated the league from 2007. Under the flag of their sponsor, the G-Team company, they won bronze medal at the 2011 European Club Cup and finally rallied to a sensational win in Greece in 2013, ahead of a peleton of extremaly strong Russian teams.

Statistics 1992-2013:

• most individual appearances: 22 (all) - GM Babula, IM Biolek, IM Čech, GM Hráček, GM Jansa, GM Jirovský, IM Konopka, IM Neděla, IM Rašík, GM Velička, GM Votava
  
• most individual medals: GM Hráček (11-7-3), GM Cvek (10-6-1), GM Kalod (9-4-2), GM Láznička (8-1-0)
  
• most individual points: GM Votava 135.5
  
• most individual games: IM Rašík 224 (of 236 theoretically possible)
  
• best percentage (min.30 games): GM Bartel 23.5/32 = 73.4%
  

See Czech Extraliga summary 1992-2013

See all-time Czech Extraliga statistics

The leaders in both divisions turned up looking confident, the Russian women in particular, who were dressed for success, giving off a celebratory air.

The Chinese men's team was energetic on the board, and they looked intent on guaranteeing themselves the long coveted gold medal, Liren Ding and Yangyi Yu hitting fast and hard on boards two and three. Ding put China ahead in the third hour, and a 3-1 win and Olympiad gold at last seemed just a matter of time.
And so it proved! China could settle their nerves as Ding Liren's board two win over Grzegorz Gajewski was followed by draws on top and bottom boards. The one remaining game was an absolutely unloseable bishops of opposite colors ending where hot man Yangyi Yu had all the chances and eventually brought home the bacon to give the majestic Chinese men's team a first Olympiad gold.

'Blocker' Yue Wang neutralized every tough first board player he met but Peter Leko - and this was the team's only individual loss of the event. The rest of the team was in magnificent form. Rumor had it that a win by Yu in the last round would put him over the magic 2700 barrier - after 10 rounds he had 8.5/10 and a 2902 performance.

Hungary's hopes for silver looked to be dimming, after drawing both White games - they had uphill battles against the Ukraine on the remaining two boards.
All of the matches between medal candidates were open, but the USA had some setbacks - first board Nakamura appeared to be losing against Azerbaijan, and their 'bottom gun', Sam Shankland, could not convert an advantage against Eltaj Safarli on board four - this result means that the US GM had to 'settle' for a final personal score of 9/10.


India supporters noted that the not completely outlandish combination of a China win, draws in the Russia-France and Azerbaijan-USA matches, and an Indian win over Uzbekistan would bring them a medal. The first part quickly looked plausible, and the other matches were predictably close and tense.
Armenia-Czech Republic was a tough last round match with a heavyweight battle on first board. Both teams had hopes for a better result in Tromsø, and although Levon Aronian ended the event with a powerful win over David Navara he was far from satisfied.

The Russian women did not open as strongly as the Chinese men, and the matches in the women's section were still up for grabs in the third hour of play, with Bulgaria definitely having chances to produce the most dramatic of last round upsets against the leaders.


Alexandra Kosteniuk always looked like delivering a full point for the leaders, but the Bulgarians had good winning chances on the top two boards. GM Valentina Gunina conjured up a winning attack from a not completely convincing position on board two to seize control of the match for Russia, and when the bottom board was drawn the first official team medals of the event were recorded.

The chasing Chinese had their hands full with the third seeds, Ukraine, but gradually took over the initiative on the middle boards in a match that’s still too close to call.


Elsewhere the Germans were locked in a sharp battle with 4th seeds Georgia, but their chances to leap into the medals list looked grim as they had uphill climbs on several boards, and Georgia drew first blood with a win on second board from IM Lela Javakhishvili.

Chess Olympiad official Website

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Full OlimpBase data and stats coming soon...

Ružomberok, the city in central Slovakia, hosted the 33rd games of the annual Mitropa Cup: the chess tournament for Central European nations. While most federations decided to focus on promoting promising young players, the tournament enjoys wide interest and participation of many strong GMs. The permanent member of the cycle are Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Poland are reserves and receive invitation in case somebody is missing.

In Open division Hungary, top seeds, took final win beating Germany by 2.5 to 1.5 in the decisive match of last round. GM Acs sealed his team's win in a nice ending vs IM Heimann to conclude with excellent 8/9. While Germany took silver, the home side Slovakia came in third (GM Michalik 7.5/9). Newcomers Poland led by 16-year old prodigy GM Duda finished in 7th.

Italy comfortably won (as usual) women's contest even though they lost to runners-up Germany 0.5-1.5 in round 8. While Austria were third, Hungary's 4th place was taken with 7 draws out of 9 rounds! Hungary's second board Melinda Varga scored 7.5/9 only to see her team-mate struggling at 1.5/9.

WIM Osmandoja of Germany in Women's tournament and GM Acs of Hungary scored 8/9 - top individual results.

See tournament website: http://mitropa.sachrbk.sk

Detailed results of 2014 Mitropa Cup: open and women
Mitropa Cup all-time summary: open and women
Mitropa Cup all-time statistics: open and women

The Asian Nations Cup for men and women took place from 20th to 30th May, 2014 in the city of Tabriz, Iran. The event was open to all chess federations in FIDE zones 3.1 to 3.7.

The Asian Nations Cup for men was a 10 team round-robin Team Championship, where each team consisted of 4 players plus 1 reserve. China and India shared first place with 16 points each, but China emerged winner on superior tie-break score. Vietnam, with the 2013 World blitz champion GM Le Quang Liem at the head, took the bronze with 14 points, leaving the nearest contender Kazakhstan 2 points behind.

The Asian Nations Cup for women was played in 5 rounds. The teams consisted of the same number of players (4+1), as the Men’s Section. The last round of the event was crucial. The top seeded team of China crushed Kazakhstan 4:0 to claim the gold with total 15 points. Meanwhile, India couldn’t overplay the local team of Iran and finished equal 2:2 after the more experienced IM Eesha Karavade lost against the young talented Iranian WIM Mitra Hejazipour. Thus India remained second with 13 points, while the team of Iran deservedly grabbed the bronze with 10.5 points.

As blitz championship was introduced back in 2012, this time six sets of medals were prepare: 2 for standard time control, 2 for rapid (new!) and two for blitz. In open section Kazakshtan beat China in the final (!) while China grabbed blitz honours ahead of India. Mighty Chinese female squad easily took gold medals in rapid competition, yet were eliminated in the semifinal of the blitz. India then beat Vietnam in the final.

See tournament website: http://an2014.ircf.ir

Detailed results of 2014 Asian Team Championship: open and women
Asian Team Chess Championship all-time summary: open and women
Asian Team Chess Championship all-time statistics: open and women

Details from rapid and blitz competition taken from chess-results.com
Open - rapid: preliminaries and play-offs
Open - blitz: preliminaries and play-offs
Women - rapid: preliminaries and play-offs
Women - blitz: preliminaries and play-offs

Asian Team Championship 2014 medal table:

1. China        4 gold - 1 silver - 1 bronze
2. India        1 gold - 4 silver - 0 bronze
3. Kazakhstan   1 gold - 0 silver - 1 bronze
4. Vietnam      0 gold - 1 silver - 4 bronze
5. Iran A       0 gold - 0 silver - 3 bronze
6. Iran B       0 gold - 0 silver - 1 bronze

/ based on news from chessdom.com /