2012 European Club Cup Update
After five completed rounds of the European Chess Club Cup in Eilat, Israel, the Saint Petersburg Chess Federation lead with a perfect match score of 5 wins from 5.
St. Petersburg will now face top seeds SOCAR Azerbaijan in round six. SOCAR Azerbaijan are fighting back from a 3½-2½ loss in the first round to Ashdod, when Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Veselin Topalov lost to Andrei Volokitin and Pavel Eljanov respectively.
The spectacular Volokitin versus Mamedyarov game is definitely worth a look!
The top standings after round five (of seven)
| # | Team | W | L | D | MP | S-B |
| 1 | Saint-Petersburg Chess Fed | 5 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 372.5 |
| 2 | Economist-SGSEU Saratov | 4 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 340.0 |
| 3 | Ashdod | 4 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 329.0 |
| 4 | Ugra | 4 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 314.3 |
| 5 | SOCAR Azerbaijan | 4 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 311.3 |
| 6 | Tomsk-400 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 295.8 |
| 7 | SHSM-64 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 286.8 |
| 8 | G-Team Novy Bor | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 297.5 |
| 9 | Vesnianka Gran | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 271.5 |
| 10 | Gros Xake Taldea | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 248.5 |
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A separate women's competition is taking place alongside the Open event. Top seeds Cercle d'Echecs de Monte Carlo, headed by the powerful trio of Hou Yifan, Koneru Humpy and Anna Muzychuk are leading with 5 match wins from 5 played.
The Women's standings after five rounds (of seven)
| # | Team | W | D | L | MP | S-B |
| 1 | Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo | 5 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 140.5 |
| 2 | Ugra | 4 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 105.0 |
| 3 | Mika | 3 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 109.0 |
| 4 | Ashdod | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 64.3 |
| 5 | SHSM-Nashe Nasledie | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 85.0 |
| 6 | AVS | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 107.3 |
| 7 | Chigorin Club | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 71.0 |
| 8 | Rishon Le-Zion | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 39.5 |
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Hou Yifan lost her first round game to Alexandra Kosteniuk
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The 28th European Chess Club Cup runs from 11-17 October. The championship is played as a 7-round Swiss, and the time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes to a finish with an increment of 30 seconds per move from the start. Draw offers are not allowed until after the time control at move 40.
Games start at 15:00 (13:00 UTC) local time except the final round which starts at 10:30.
Games via TWIC. Full pairings and results available at the Chess-results website.
The official website is here, and the live games page is here.
