Clichy wins French Team Championship

By drawing their match against rival Cannes, the Clichy team (with Pelletier, Nisipeanu, Edouard, Fressinet, Skripchenko, Jakovenko, Naiditsch and Apicella) won the French team championship last week.

Every national team competition has its own system, and we've never actually written about the French League in detail before. Jan Lagrain (Schaakfabriek) explained it clearly:

In France they work with 2 poules. After 7 rounds, the first 4 of both poules continue in an "A poule" and the last 4 in a "B poule". During the final weekend, the first 4 of both poules play each other but the points accumulated during the season still count. After the final 4 days the final standings are made.

Draws do not count in France, by the way. When it's 1-1, it means there were 2 wins, one scored by each team. This way, 8 draws lead to nothing instead of 4 points for each team. On the other hand, it's the team results that count, not the board points. A victory yields 3 points, a tie 2.

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The topscores for each individual board:

1st Hikaru Nakamura (Antibes) 8,5 / 11 2nd Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Clichy) 6/8 3rd Murtas Kazhgaleyev Murtas (Cannes) 8,5/11 4th Tregubov Pavel (Clichy) 6/7 5th Philippe Christophe (Vandoeuvre) 8/11 6th Libiszewski Fabien (Montpellier) 8/11 7th Cornette Matthieu (Cannes) 5,5/8 8th Skripchenko Almira (Clichy) 9/10

Here are the games from the crucial match Clichy-Cannes, played Sunday, June 1st, with a final score of "1-1". Below you'll find a video by Europe-Echecs:





Links:

• Website French Chess Federation
• Games in PGN