Big clashes about to come at European Club Cup
After two rounds at the European Club Cup in Slovenia the strongest teams haven't faced each other yet. In the men's section the favourites haven't dropped points so far, but the reigning champions in the women's tournament surprisingly lost in the first round.
For more info see also our announcement here.
General info | |
| Event | 27th European Club Cup for Men and 16th European Club Cup for Women | PGN: Men, Women |
| Dates | September 24th - October 2nd, 2011 |
| Location | Rogaska Slatina, Slovenia |
| System | 7-round Swiss |
| Players | E.g. Ponomariov, Grischuk, Radjabov, Gelfand, Mamedyarov, Svidler, Adams, Wang Hao, Vitiugov, Moiseenko, Giri, Nepomniachtchi |
| Time control | 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one |
| Prizes | The first team prize in the men's section is €12,400 and in the women's €4,000. |
| Notes | Teams consist of six players |
Rounds 1-2
The first rounds of a team tournament are usually not too interesting and this year's European Club Cup is not an exception. With no less than 62 teams in the men's section, obviously the Swiss system resulted in strong teams facing much weaker teams. There were lots of 6-0's, 5½-½'s and 5-1's in both the first and the second round! The big exception was the 1.5-2.5 loss of reigning champ Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo against Giprorechtrans on the first day.
Especially the main playing hall, the Crystal Hall of the Grand Hotel, looks wonderful and from the few players we've spoken so far, the organization seems to be OK. The official website, however, is quite disappointing so far. It seems that for some reason the organizers aren't using the excellent Chess Results to process the data and so the results and standings are shown in different ways for different rounds, and aren't as easy to access as we're used to. More importantly, the transmission of the live games didn't go well during the first round.
Luckily we have some great names playing in Slovenia, such as Ponomariov, Grischuk, Radjabov, Gelfand, Mamedyarov, Svidler, Adams, Wang Hao, Vitiugov, Moiseenko, Giri and Nepomniachtchi. The legendary Viktor Korchnoi plays on board 2 for the Zurich team, behind Yannick Pelletier. Below you'll find our traditional selection of interesting games played so far, and a selection of photos. Today's round has World Cup winner Peter Svidler making his debut in Rogaska Slatina - games can be watched at different places but we like the WhyChess page the most.
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The Grand Hotel in Rogaska Slatina, Slovenia...
...with its splendid Crystal Hall, full of chess sets and clocks...
...and here also with players
Many big names travelled to Slovenia - here we see Pavel Eljanov and Candidates winner Boris Gelfand
The Socar team with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Emil Sutovsky on top boards
World Cup finalist Alexander Grischuk plays for the same team
4th at the World Cup, Ruslan Ponomariov (r.) here analyzing his round 2 game with Hannes Stefansson
Anish Giri analyzing his interesting draw in round 1 with FM Markus Bawart
Hou Yifan travelled together with her mother, who makes sure the memories are captured
The legendary Viktor Korchnoi is also playing in Slovenia
All photos © Vladimir Jagr for www.nss.cz
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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