On third and fourth of July the finals of the Greek cup were played. One of the attractions was the participation of Etienne Bacrot. But it was not his team that won the cup. After a hard fight, three drawn matches, and fourth decisive E.S. Thessaloniki (D. and A. Mastrovasilis, V. Iotov and D. Zakarian) triumphed with the cup.
Greek teams are played in a different manner than most of the team competitions I know. Each team consists of 5 men boards, one women board, two girls (under 16 and 18 years), and 4 boys (under 18, 16, 14 and 12 years respectively) boards. This gives an essence of the tournament, and most of the matches are decided by the children’s’ boards. The idea is simple and effective-those who wish to have a strong team should care about the development of their own chess school, and can not only count on hired professionals.
Each team has the right to use 2 foreign players. Usually the top male board competition is extremely strong. I remember that three years ago my average rating on first board was 2615. Among the top guns that took part in the event were Evgeny Postny (Israel), Baadur Jobava, Zurab Azmaiparashvili, Tamaz Gelashvili (Georgia), Pentala Harikrishna (India), Yuri Kryvoruchko and Evgenij Miroshnichenko (Ukraine), Suat Atalik (Turkey), Ivan Ivanisevic (Serbia), Bartolomiej Macieja (Poland) and the only one rated over 2700-Sergei Movsesian. All the best Greek players took part as well, including the current number one-Ioannis Papaioannou who recently qualified for the World cup from EICC in Plovdiv. “I am only an amateur player”, says for him modestly the Greek “I was very lucky in Plovdiv that some of my opponents sacrificed too many pieces against me. The World championship will be a great experience for me”. Papaioannou moved back to his home team Kavala from “Kidon”-Chania, the main rivals for the title. Some important changes were made in these teams Andrey Sokolov from Kavala was replaced by Pentala Harikrishna and Zurab Azmaiparashvili from “Kidon” by his compatriot Baadur Jobava. Unfortunately for them both new leaders were not in their best form. In addition Kavala owes GMs Kotronias, Skembris and Anna-Maria Botsari, while “Kidon” is more modest with GMs Banikas and Nikolaidis. These two teams are always in conflict for the title, and “Kidon” won in 2005, while Kavala took revenge in 2006. There is a third very strong team-E. S. Thessaloniki led by Miroshnichenko, GM brothers Athanasios and Dimitrios Mastrovasilis, and Valentin Iotov.
Silver went for the team of “Thessaloniki” that had hard time against my modest team of OFS “Kavalas” (the second team of Kavala), but finally drew the match, which was good enough for them. They had an exceptional good year-cup, and second place at the finals.
Third place is for “Kidon”Chania that lost both direct matches with two first teams.
Zoi Iordanidou on female board under 16 was the only player to finish on 100% with seven wins.
Mini-tournament on board one was won by Evgeny Postny (6/7), who modestly declared that he only “used his opponents’ mistakes”. But maybe the secret for his success is another-“2661! If I had a girlfriend like his I would be over 2700!!”-exclaimed one of the Greek GMs. Well, judge for yourself.
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