European Individual Chess Championship

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View of the tournament hall from the Men's (Zegrze) 2005 event

The European Individual Chess Championship is a chess tournament organized by the European Chess Union. It was established in 2000 and has since then taken place on a yearly basis. Apart from determining the European Champion, another object of this tournament is to determine a number of players who qualify for the FIDE world championship.

1 History
2 Mode of play
3 Controversy
4 Overview of results (Men)
5 Overview of results (Women)
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

A tournament purporting to be the first European Championship (Europameisterschaft) was held in Munich, 14–26 September 1942, organised by Ehrhardt Post, a President of Nazi Grossdeutscher Schachbund. But given that players from Germany's enemies (Soviet Union, Great Britain and Poland) were unable to participate (because of World War II), and Jewish players barred (because of Nazi policy), this tournament was simply a manifestation of Nazi propaganda and has never received any form of official recognition as a championship. Reuben Fine's comment in "Chess Marches On" (1945), page 136: "Alekhine has participated in a number of European shindigs, including one so-called 'European Championship' ....his competitors were at best second-rate second-raters." The last opinion is curious as Alekhine (World Champion), Keres (pretendent for the title), Bogoljubow (former World Champion challenger), Stoltz (winner, ahead of Alekhine, at Munich 1941), and Junge (co-winner, with Alekhine, at Prague 1942) made Munich 1942 the world's strongest tournament in 1942. The next-strongest tournaments were Salzburg 1942, New York (US Championship) 1942, Mar del Plata 1942, Prague (Duras Memorial) 1942, and Moscow (Championship) 1942.^[1]

The line-up at Munich 1942 was as follows:

#	Player	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	Total
1	Alexander Alekhine (FRA)	x	1	½	½	1	1	1	0	1	½	1	1	8½
2	Paul Keres (EST)	0	x	1	½	0	1	½	1	½	1	1	1	7½
3	Jan Foltys (CZE)	½	0	x	1	½	1	0	½	1	1	½	1	7
4	Efim Bogoljubow (GER)	½	½	0	x	1	0	1	1	½	1	½	1	7
5	Kurt Richter (GER)	0	1	½	0	x	½	½	1	½	1	1	1	7
6	Gedeon Barcza (HUN)	0	0	0	1	½	x	½	0	1	½	1	1	5½
7	Klaus Junge (GER)	0	½	1	0	½	½	x	1	½	0	0	1	5
8	Ludwig Rellstab (GER)	1	0	½	0	0	1	0	x	0	½	1	½	4½
9	Gösta Stoltz (SWE)	0	½	0	½	½	0	½	1	x	0	0	1	4
10	Ivan Vladimir Rohaček (SVK)	½	0	0	0	0	½	1	½	1	x	½	0	4
11	Mario Napolitano (ITA)	0	0	½	½	0	0	1	0	1	½	x	0	3½
12	Braslav Rabar (CRO)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	½	0	1	1	x	2½

Wertungsturnier – Qualification Tournament

1. Gösta Danielsson (SWE) 8, 2. József Szily (HUN) 7, 3-5. Géza Füster (HUN), Federico Norcia (ITA), Hans Müller (GER) 6.5, 6. Vincenzo Nestler (ITA) 6, 7-8. Sergiu Samarian (ROM), Alexander Tsvetkov (BUL) 5.5, 9. Mladen Šubarić (CRO) 5, 10. Carl Ahues (GER) 4.5, 11. Charles Roele (NED) 4, 12. Olof Kinnmark (SWE) 1.

Two books have appeared to date on this event. They are: Europa-Schach-Rundschau: Band 1 Europameisterschaft Munchen 1942 by Alfred Brinckmann (probably published 1943), and A müncheni sakkmesterverseny Európa bajnokságáért 1942 (Kecskemét 1942) by Gedeon Barcza. The games of the second group (Wertungsturnier - Qualification Tournament) were, in the main, published in a small booklet by Erich Friebel, published (in Vienna?) in 1990.^[2]

[edit] Mode of play

The tournament is held separately for men and women as a Swiss system tournament, with a varying number of rounds. The only exception was the first Women's Championship tournament in 2000, which was held as a knock-out-tournament. It should be noted that, as with all chess competitions, the "men's" section is in fact an open tournament in which female players may participate, but not vice versa. In 2002, Judit Polgar narrowly missed the bronze medal in the men's competition by losing a play-off match against Zurab Azmaiparashvili.

Apart from the first edition in 2000, where in case of a tie the Buchholz-Rating was used as a tie-breaker, rapid-play play-off matches were used to determine the medal winners as well as the world championship qualifiers.

[edit] Controversy

A number of recurrent issues have been marring the event from the very beginning:

At most venues, participants and accompanying persons were obliged to accommodate at the "official hotel", appointed by the local organizers. The room rates, however, would be significantly higher than for other hotel guests.^[3]^[4] This in fact triggered the founding of the ACP. Also the standard of the hotels as well as of the food has been a focus of complaints by players and journalists.

As the European Championships are part of the FIDE World Championship cycle, starting with the 2001 edition, the new, faster FIDE time control was used. This led to many complaints by the participants about increased stress, incessant time trouble and a steep deterioration of the quality of the games.^[5]^[6]

A more indirect problem is the uncertainty whether a player's qualification for the World Championship will be of any value at all due to the inconsistent staging of the World Championship Tournaments since the change of the tournament format in 1999. For example, the 2002 European Championships provided five qualifying spots for the 2003 World Championship which in fact never took place.

[edit] Overview of results (Men)

Year	Venue	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Players/rounds
2000	Saint-Vincent, Italy	Pavel Tregubov (RUS)	Aleksej Aleksandrov (BLR)	Tomasz Markowski (POL)	120 / 11
2001	Ohrid, Macedonia	Emil Sutovsky (ISR)	Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR)	Zurab Azmaiparashvili (GEO)	203 / 13
2002	Batumi, Georgia	Bartlomiej Macieja (POL)	Mikhail Gurevich (BEL)	Sergey Volkov (RUS)	101 / 13
2003	Istanbul, Turkey	Zurab Azmaiparashvili (GEO)	Vladimir Malakhov (RUS)	Alexander Graf (GER)	207 / 13
2004	Antalya, Turkey	Vasyl Ivanchuk (UKR)	Predrag Nikolic (BIH)	Levon Aronian (ARM)	74 / 13
2005	Zegrze, Poland	Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (ROM)	Teimour Radjabov (AZE)	Levon Aronian (ARM)	229 / 13
2006	Kuşadası, Turkey	Zdenko Kozul (CRO)	Vasyl Ivanchuk (UKR)	Kiril Georgiev (BUL)	138 / 11
2007	Dresden, Germany	Vladislav Tkachiev (FRA)	Emil Sutovsky (ISR)	Dmitry Jakovenko (RUS)	403 / 11
2008	Plovdiv, Bulgaria	Sergei Tiviakov (NED)	Sergei Movsesian (SVK)	Sergey Volkov (RUS)	323 / 11

[edit] Overview of results (Women)

Year	Venue	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Players/rounds
2000	Batumi, Georgia	Natalia Zhukova (UKR)	Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (RUS)	Maia Chiburdanidze (GEO) Tatiana Stepovaya (RUS)	32 / K.O.
2001	Warsaw, Poland	Almira Skripchenko (MDA)	Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (RUS)	Ketevan Arakhamia (GEO)	157 / 11
2002	Varna, Bulgaria	Antoaneta Stefanova (BUL)	Lilit Mkrtchian (ARM)	Alisa Galliamova (RUS)	114 / 11
2003	Istanbul, Turkey	Pia Cramling (SWE)	Viktorija Cmilyte (LTU)	Tatiana Kosintseva (RUS)	113 / 11
2004	Dresden, Germany	Alexandra Kosteniuk (RUS)	Zhaoqin Peng (NED)	Antoaneta Stefanova (BUL)	108 / 12
2005	Chişinău, Moldova	Kateryna Lahno (UKR)	Nadezhda Kosintseva (RUS)	Yelena Dembo (GRE)	164 / 12
2006	Kuşadası, Turkey	Ekaterina Atalik (TUR)	Tea Bosboom-Lanchava (NED)	Lilit Mkrtchian (ARM)	96 / 11
2007	Dresden, Germany	Tatiana Kosintseva (RUS)	Antoaneta Stefanova (BUL)	Nadezhda Kosintseva (RUS)	150 / 11
2008	Plovdiv, Bulgaria	Kateryna Lahno (UKR)	Viktorija Cmilyte (LTU)	Anna Ushenina (UKR)	157 / 11

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ Strongest Tournament between 1942 and 1943 at chessmetrics.com
^ Gillam, Anthony J. & Swift, A J (2001), 1st European championship Munich 1942, Nottingham: The Chess Player, ISBN 1-901034-46-1
^ Krasenkow, Michal, “Youth on top in Batumi”, New In Chess Magazine 2002 (06): 69-79, OCLC 20735159
^ Geuzendam, Ten & Jan, Dirk, “"Azmai" fourth European Champion”, New In Chess Magazine 2003 (05): 26–45, OCLC 20735159
^ Tischbierek, Raj, “Himmelhoch jauchzend, zu Tode betrübt”, Schach 2001 (07): 4-31, ISSN 0048-9328
^ Van Wely, Loek, “Sometimes the King Wore no Clothes”, New In Chess Magazine 2001 (05): 52-57, OCLC 20735159