European Club Cup 2008
The 2008 European Club Cup starts today in Halkidiki, Greece with a huge number of talented players taking part. Think I'm exaggerating? Well, there are more than 80 players rated over 2600 Elo and of those, more than 20 are over 2700! The popular young star Magnus Carlsen (pictured) is among them. Truly an incredibly strong competition!
The format of the event is a 7-round Swiss, with no rest days, finishing on the 23rd October. Games start at 2:30 pm local time (GMT+2).
Alongside this 'Open' tournament there is a women's tournament being held as well in the same format.
There are 64 teams in the men's competition and 18 teams in the women's event.
The top rated team is URAL Sverdolavskya and their squad is:
| 1 |
Radjabov Teimour | 2751 |
AZE |
| 2 |
Kamsky Gata | 2729 |
USA |
| 3 |
Shirov Alexei | 2726 |
ESP |
| 4 |
Grischuk Alexander | 2719 |
RUS |
| 5 |
Malakhov Vladimir | 2675 |
RUS |
| 6 |
Motylev Alexander | 2672 |
RUS |
| 7 |
Dreev Alexey | 2670 |
RUS |
| 8 |
Rashkovsky Nukhim N | 2519 |
RUS |
The top players taking part include:
Open Section
| 1 | Morozevich Alexander | 2788 | RUS |
| 2 | Ivanchuk Vassily | 2781 | UKR |
| 3 | Carlsen Magnus | 2775 | NOR |
| 4 | Radjabov Teimour | 2744 | AZE |
| 5 | Mamedyarov Shakhriyar | 2742 | AZE |
| 6 | Shirov Alexei | 2741 | ESP |
| 7 | Svidler Peter | 2738 | RUS |
| 8 | Aronian Levon | 2737 | ARM |
| 9 | Adams Michael | 2735 | ENG |
| 10 | Grischuk Alexander | 2728 | RUS |
| 11 | Karjakin Sergey | 2727 | UKR |
| 12 | Kamsky Gata | 2723 | USA |
| 13 | Movsesian Sergei | 2723 | SVK |
| 14 | Gelfand Boris | 2720 | ISR |
| 15 | Ponomariov Ruslan | 2718 | UKR |
| 16 | Gashimov Vugar | 2717 | AZE |
| 17 | Eljanov Pavel | 2716 | UKR |
| 18 | Jakovenko Dmitry | 2709 | RUS |
| 19 | Alekseev Evgeny | 2708 | RUS |
| 20 | Milov Vadim | 2705 | SUI |
| 21 | Ni Hua | 2705 | CHN |
| 22 | Wang Yue | 2704 | CHN |
Women's Section
| 1 | Koneru Humpy | 2622 | IND |
| 2 | Xie Jun | 2574 | CHN |
| 3 | Hou Yifan | 2557 | CHN |
| 4 | Stefanova Antoaneta | 2550 | BUL |
| 5 | Cramling Pia | 2544 | SWE |
| 6 | Zhao Xue | 2522 | CHN |
| 7 | Kosintseva Tatiana | 2511 | RUS |
| 8 | Cmilyte Viktorija | 2508 | LTU |
| 9 | Lahno Kateryna | 2507 | UKR |
| 10 | Muzychuk Anna | 2504 | SLO |
| 11 | Danielian Elina | 2495 | ARM |
| 12 | Chiburdanidze Maia | 2489 | GEO |
| 13 | Zhukova Natalia | 2489 | UKR |
| 14 | Hoang Thanh Trang | 2487 | HUN |
| 15 | Paehtz Elisabeth | 2481 | GER |
| 16 | Ushenina Anna | 2476 | UKR |
| 17 | Socko Monika | 2473 | POL |
| 18 | Gaponenko Inna | 2468 | UKR |
| 19 | Skripchenko Almira | 2463 | FRA |
| 20 | Harika Dronavalli | 2461 | IND |
| 21 | Kosintseva Nadezhda | 2460 | RUS |
| 22 | Korbut Ekaterina | 2459 | RUS |
Many first round games have now finished. Here is a win by US star Gata Kamsky. Full details of the event and all the games can be found at the official website.
There has also been controversy before the event even began as Fabiano Caruana was disqualified from competing because he had not met the requirement of playing at least 2 games in the national or region club competitions - see the video from the official coverage by Chessdom below.
