SOCAR Azerbaijan Win The European Club Cup
Socar Azerbaijan completed a remarkable comeback to win the 2012 European Cup!
After losing in the first round to Ashdod, SOCAR Azerbaijan had an uphill task, but they won all six of their remaining matches to take the team Gold Medal (previous report here).
Alexander Grischuk won the single decisive game for SOCAR Azerbaijan in their crucial penultimate round showdown with Saint Petersburg to earn a 3½-2½ victory.
In the final round SOCAR Azerbaijan crushed Tomsk-400 by a score of 5-1 to narrowly take first place by a superior Sonneborn-Berger tie-break score.
The winning team for SOCAR Azerbaijan were:
| Name | Fed | Elo |
| Radjabov Teimour | AZE | 2792 |
| Mamedyarov Shakhriyar | AZE | 2748 |
| Topalov Veselin | BUL | 2751 |
| Grischuk Alexander | RUS | 2752 |
| Kamsky Gata | USA | 2755 |
| Sutovsky Emil | ISR | 2685 |
| Safarli Eltaj | AZE | 2616 |
| Guseinov Gadir | AZE | 2608 |
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The winning SOCAR Azerbaijan team
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The top finishers in the 2012 European Club Cup
| # | Team | W | D | L | MP | S-B |
| 1 | SOCAR Azerbaijan | 6 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 673.8 |
| 2 | Saint-Petersburg Chess Fed | 6 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 665.5 |
| 3 | SHSM-64 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 590.5 |
| 4 | Economist-SGSEU Saratov | 5 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 653.0 |
| 5 | Ugra | 5 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 607.3 |
| 6 | Ashdod | 5 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 595.8 |
| 7 | Tomsk-400 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 572.5 |
| 8 | OSG Baden-Baden e.V. | 4 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 571.3 |
| 9 | Siroki Brijeg | 4 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 478.3 |
| 10 | G-Team Novy Bor | 4 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 553.5 |
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St. Petersburg (left) lost to SOCAR Azerbaijan in round 6
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In the separate women's competition, Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo dominated the event by winning all their matches. Not a surprising result since they were led by Hou Yifan, Koneru Humpy and Anna Muzychuk. Also in the team were Pia Cramling and team captain Almira Skripchenko.
The winning Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo team
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The final standings in the Women's Competition
| # | Team | W | D | L | MP | S-B |
| 1 | Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo | 7 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 261.0 |
| 2 | Mika | 5 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 225.0 |
| 3 | Ugra | 4 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 184.3 |
| 4 | SHSM-Nashe Nasledie | 3 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 196.0 |
| 5 | AVS | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 199.8 |
| 6 | Ashdod | 2 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 91.0 |
| 7 | Chigorin Club | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 101.3 |
| 8 | Rishon Le-Zion | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 52.3 |
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Photos by Anastasia Karlovich at the official website. Games via TWIC. Full results available at the Chess-results website.
