San Sebastian celebrates and commemorates
Gros Xake Taldea won the top league of the 2011 Spanish Team Championship. It was the first title ever for the team of San Sebastian, in the same year that the local chess scene will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the famous San Sebastian 1911 tournament.
The winning team Gros Xake Taldea
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The top league ('División Honor') of the Spanish Team Championship took place November 20-26 in Melilla, Spain. Melilla is a 12.3 square km autonomous city of Spain and an exclave on the north coast of Morocco. Along with Ceuta it is one of the two Spanish territories located in mainland Africa. It was regarded as a part of Málaga province prior to 14 March 1995, when the city's Statute of Autonomy was passed.
Again a number of very strong chess players participated in the championship, but at the same time it was weaker than last year. Three teams really stood out above the rest: Gros Xake Taldea, CA Sestao Naturgas Energia and Colegio Marcote-EIKM.
Gros Xake Taldea won their first title ever, edging out CA Sestao Naturgas Energia on board points. It was a bit unfortunate for the Sestao team, who stayed undefeated in the tournament and even beat the champions in the final round!
However, for Gros Xake Taldea it couldn't be better, clinching their first national title in the same year that the local chess scene will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the famous San Sebastian 1911 tournament. Exactly a hundred years ago a major international tournament was held for the first time in San Sebastian, and it became the international breakthrough of the later World Champion Capablanca. After the 1912 edition the tournament ceased to exist.
Next month a unique tournament will be held in San Sebastian to commemorate this occasion. It will follow a knockout system along with a parallel tournament for the losers of the first round and an International Open. In the knockout, each player will play each round 2 simultaneous games, one with white and the other with black!
The prize fund of € 100,000 already attracted strong players such as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Ruslan Ponomariov, Arkadij Naiditsch, Leinier Dominguez, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Viktor Laznicka, Laurent Fressinet, Andrei Volokitin, Loek van Wely and Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
Spanish Team Championship 2011 | Final standings
| Rk. | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | TB1 | TB2 |
| 1 | Gros Xake Taldea | * | 2½ | 5½ | 3½ | 4 | 5 | 4 | 10 | 24.5 |
| 2 | CA Sestao Naturgas Energia | 3½ | * | 3 | 4½ | 4½ | 4½ | 3 | 10 | 23.0 |
| 3 | Colegio Marcote-EIKM | ½ | 3 | * | 4 | 3½ | 4 | 4 | 9 | 19.0 |
| 4 | CA Reverte Albox | 2½ | 1½ | 2 | * | 2 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 17.0 |
| 5 | CA Linex-Magic | 2 | 1½ | 2½ | 4 | * | 1 | 4½ | 4 | 15.5 |
| 6 | CA Solvay | 1 | 1½ | 2 | 1 | 5 | * | 4½ | 4 | 15.0 |
| 7 | Cajacanarias | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1½ | 1½ | * | 1 | 12.0 |
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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