Aronian and Radjabov set the example in Novi Sad
Levon Aronian joined the national squad of Armenia in the second round of the European Team Championship. He beat GM Istratescu and led his team to a 2.5-1.5 victory against Romania. Azerbaijan beat England with the same score and in the women section Russia lost to Georgia.The 17th European Team Championship is organized by the European Chess Union and Serbia Chess Federation. The Championship is held in Novi Sad, Serbia (80 km northwest of the capital Belgrade and 280 km south of Budapest). The dates are October 21th (day of arrival) until October 31th 2009 (day of departure). It's a nine round Swiss played from October 22nd to 30th, without a rest day. The time control is 90 min. for 40 moves + 30 min. & 30 sec. increment.Round 2
Istratescu was actually very close to reaching a draw against Aronian but his 36...Rf2? allowed the tricky 37.Rg6! which won on the spot. With draws on boards 2-4, this game decided the match in Armenia's favour.Mamedyarov, who was playing on board 4, scored the first point for his team in the England-Azerbijan match with a crushing victory against Simon Williams. The England team has one surprising name: Luke McShane, who is not a professional, but is still capable of playing on a very high level. Yesterday he drew comfortably with Black against Gashimov. Radjabov decided the match by beating Adams with Black but Conquest saved his team's honour with a nice win against Guseinov.France has to do without Vachier-Lagrave, who is playing the World Youth in Argentina at the moment, and already in the second round this played a role. Bacrot drew with Jobava but his team lost 1.5-2.5 to Georgia. The Dutch team was held 2-2 by Italy, mainly because Jan Smeets lost and ending that was at least equal, e.g. after 31.Kc1. After 31.Kb3?! Qd3! Caruana suddely had an annoying initiative and after a few more inaccuracies White was suddenly lost.In this second round, the women section already saw the important encounter between Georgia and Russia. Kosteniuk drew with Dzagnidze on board one and Nadezhda Kosintseva did her duty, but her sister Tatiana and Valentina Gunina both lost. The Dutch women were crushed 0.5-3.5 by Germany.All results round 2
Selection of games round 2
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Radjabov beats Adams in the Azerbaijan-England match...
...and Aronian does the same against Istratescu, deciding the Armenia-Romania match
Navara-Shirov was an interesting draw on board one of Czech Republic-Spain, in which Laznicka (board 2) was forfeited for arriving too late at the board
Viktor Kortchnoi went down against Zoltan Almasi in a rook ending
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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