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| Nov-17-23 | | goodevans: N Theodorou vs Radjabov, 2023 Radja chose to partake in a well known super-sharp opening that usually peters out to a quick draw. The danger with that is that you might run into an opponent's prep you're not familiar with. Having to navigate through a minefield ain't easy when your opponent knows where all the mines are. Didn't take Radja long to step on one. |
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Nov-19-23
 | | Atterdag: Wild game this one: J B Bjerre vs Carlsen, 2023 The young Dane almost had Carlsen by the throat. However, it was the opposite between moves 14 and 30, when Carlsen played 30.-Bc6? Great photo series on the official site. Lovely girls and ladies - they are the future of women chess. |
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| Nov-19-23 | | fabelhaft: Doesn’t get more per-arranged than that, will hopefully cost both teams in the end and especially England with the much higher rated team. |
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| Nov-19-23 | | fabelhaft: Ah, they now say transmission glitch and no draws. |
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| Nov-19-23 | | GlennOliver: Just to note that the game 5. B Bok vs Adams is a duplicated result and also truncated. It is the following game 6. B Bok vs Adams which gives the correct moves, ending at move 43. Michael Adams didn't play in the first round, so the games shown are his rounds 2 - 7 inclusive. |
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Nov-19-23
| | Atterdag: At 52.Rb6 Carlsen has a winning position against Van Foreest. The real world champ has never failed to get a full point in these setups. |
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Nov-19-23
| | Atterdag: ... and 56.f4!+ was the deadly stab. Well played, Mr. Carlsen! |
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| Nov-19-23 | | fabelhaft: Serbia surprise leaders before the last round, they never finished better than 8th (but second a few times as part of Yugoslavia from the 1950s-80s). |
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Nov-19-23
 | | MissScarlett: England should have taken the draw fix. |
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| Nov-20-23 | | fabelhaft: The main reason Serbia is doing so well is their recent arrivals from Russia (playing for Serbia from 2023) on the top boards. |
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| Nov-20-23 | | fabelhaft: Candidate Abasov was outplayed by Belgian Lenaerts (rated 2322) but the latter missed the win in time trouble and had to settle with a draw. In last month's European Club Cup Lenaerts scored 0.5/5 with the draw against an opponent rated 2246 (and losses against among others a 2284 and 2378). Abasov will need to play better in the Candidates to become Ding's challenger. |
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Nov-20-23
 | | Teyss: Hi fabelhaft,
Yes Serbia is a big surprise. Seeded 10th and leading the tournament one round before the end. The fact they are almost playing at home helps (no sarcastic comment intended regarding the situation in the Balkans). Let's see if they win, they are paired against Greece in the last round, looks feasible. The other surprise is Azerbaijan of course, seeded 1st and so far 18th.What is no surprise is Scotland, last of the tournament behind, er, Faroe Islands, with board results of, hem, +1 =9 -22 (there is no typo). That's because Geoff Chandler refused to play in the team. What happened Geoff? |
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| Nov-20-23 | | fabelhaft: A second bad loss with white against 2500 opposition for Abasov today, it won’t get easier in the Candidates. |
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| Nov-20-23 | | fabelhaft: So Serbia won, and Carlsen got the first board gold. |
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| Nov-20-23 | | whiteshark: Quite a distant last round drama for Germany:
Greek 3rd bd (Kourkoulos) blew a winning position into a drawish one, only to blunder a ♗ on move 40 which lost laster.
It turned out than that the match Iceland-Turkey will decide who will become EU Champion: A 2-2 would make Serbia the winner due to the 2nd TB.
When 3rd bd (Marandi) couldn't convert a winning position... |
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| Nov-20-23 | | nok: Orthodox collusion!
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Nov-21-23
| | Atterdag: Must have been deeply disappointing for the Germans - on par with the Serbian score and only second by a hair's breadth due to the Sonneborg-Berger system. Btw, "European" seems to be a malleable definition, which doesn't take geografical consequence too seriously. Otherwise, it's hard to see why Israel and perhaps also Azerbaijan should be included. But I guess it's Europe in a cultural sense ... sort of ... ? |
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| Nov-21-23 | | Olavi: The Russian/Serbian team was a surprise, but not the biggest in these tournaments. Very lowly seeded teams have won before, or made the podium. |
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| Nov-21-23 | | nok: <it's hard to see why Israel and perhaps also Azerbaijan should be included. But I guess it's Europe in a cultural sense ... sort of ... ?> Good post my friend.
As the continent which gave us scientific racism and colonialism, I can see why Europe would co-opt Israel and Azerbaijan. But then, excluding Russia is a bit of a double standard. |
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| Nov-21-23 | | fabelhaft: The Soviet team was weakened in the 1957 event when Botvinnik didn’t participate. They had to settle with Smyslov on first board, Keres on second, Bronstein on third, Tal on fourth, Spassky on fifth, Petrosian on sixth, Taimanov on seventh, Korchnoi on eighth. After winning all their matches easily they actually managed to lose the final match where they aimed for all short draws against Yugoslavia but failed after reserves Averbakh and Aronin lost. |
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Nov-21-23
| | Teyss: Hi Atterdag,
Malleable indeed but then look for instance at UEFA Euro which also includes Israel and Azerbaijan, and even Kazakhstan. Or Eurovision Song Contest which includes the two former as well as... Australia: surely some bureaucrat must have made a typo on "Austria" here. When a contest lets obscure countries like Denmark participate, anything is possible. (A smiley is useless here, you know me.) IMHO the more the merrier, within limits of course else we would have overlapping World competitions. Re. Carlsen, gold at first board is the very last trophy he still didn't have on his overcrowded shelves (he was 2nd in 2007 and 16th in 2015). One wonders what could still motivate him to play classical Chess. Level out the score with Niemann, maybe. |
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Nov-22-23
 | | alexmagnus: Israel is included in European competition because in Asia half of the continent would boycott them, resulting in quite a distorted or even unplayable competition. Btw soccer: now Israel plays in Europe. But for the first few years they played in... Oceania. |
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Nov-22-23
| | alexmagnus: But anyway, Europe doesn't exist. Nothing in geography actually separates Europe from Asia. The reason we still think of them as separate are more historical rather than geographic. |
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Nov-22-23
| | alexmagnus: Reasons* |
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Nov-22-23
| | Atterdag: <alexmagnus: But anyway, Europe doesn't exist. Nothing in geography actually separates Europe from Asia. The reason we still think of them as separate are more historical rather than geographic.> Following that logic Asia and the Middle East don't exist either. But you're right that geography isn't a good criteria for defining Europe. Today, I'd say it's rather a political distinction. Yet, all member states of the EU + Norway, Switzerland and a couple of other countries clearly would label themselves as European. In my childhood the eastern borders of Europe was said to be the Ural mountains. Today many core Europeans would have doubts about the inclusion of Russia for obvious political reasons. |
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