Breaking the Records

This is an article for the German chess magazine Schach which is published in June's issue. I highly recommend you the magazine!

Preparation for the EICCs in Plovdiv started a very long time ago. Good thing was that men, experts in what they are doing were involved in the organization. On the other hand one major drawback was the lack of resources that our federation had. People were just not enough to take care of all details.
Few days before the start of competition from chessbase officially asked to translate the games life on their server playchess.com. This was met with mixed feelings from Bulgarian side-president Stefan Sergiev was positive, while the chief of the transmission GM Venzislav Inkiov was against it. His position was very clear: “Imagine that on the television you see the football match “Bayern” Muenchen- “Real” Madrid from the Champions League. One television has paid the rights for the event, and another one wants to take it for free-do you find it normal?” From chessbase replied that there is no thing like “authors rights” on the internet, and by transmitting the games on their server they are making good image for the championship. Finally the differences were somehow solved, but the questions remained, and I think that this is something that should be debated soon from the professional players and tournament organizers.
With the start of 9-th EICCs few records were broken here. ECU president Boris Kutin gave the suggestion that we may even candidate for Guinness with them: number of participating nationalities- 41, number of GMs participants-186 in the male event and 38 WGM plus 5 male GMs in the female section, number of players rated over 2600-precisely 70. With the latter two Plovdiv championship could be counted as the strongest open tournament ever as well.
Prime-minister of Bulgaria and patron of the event Sergey Stanishev had to open the championship, but due to political problems could not present. Instead Minister of transport Petar Mutafchiev greeted the players, as well as Vesela Lecheva-legendary Olympic Champion in sports shooting and president of State Agency for Youth and Sport, Mayor of Plovdiv Slavcho Atanasov, President of ECU Boris Kutin, etc. Bulgarian folklore music entertained the participants.
Unfortunately some players could not make it in time for the start. Spanish super-GM Paco Vallejo played the final match Dos Ermanas (Spain) against Veselin Topalov just on the previous day, and came late. Nevertheless after a special decision from the referees he was let to play with half point instead of zero for forfeit. The reason for this was the fact that he was number two seeded player, and his participation was highly recommendable. None of the participants protested against the decision, only GM Pavel Tregubov asked for an official statement from the name of ACP.
Many players came late in the night before the first round from German Bundesliga, while some of the participants were tired from the Russian Team Championship.
The main question of the tournament was will there be a player among the ten ex-European champions participating in Plovdiv who would finally double his/her title?
Women part of the tournament started with flashy start from Ekaterina Kovalevskaya from Russia. Experienced player, woman, who understands chess well, she started with four consecutive wins. Unfortunately for her later she failed victim to the pressure, lost her two final encounters and could not even qualify for the World Cup. Except for this mighty start the women tournament was tense, with a constant body of leaders (3-4 at least), a lot of interesting chess, and fight. Our hopes were connected with Antoaneta Stefanova, but she was not in her best shape, lost two important games in rounds 8 and 9 and could no longer take fight for the medals. This made her calm, and she won the last two, thus making it to the qualifiers.
Constantly, among the leaders were Kateryna Lahno, Victoria Cmilyte, Natalia Zhukova, Anna Ushenina and Pia Cramling. The penultimate round appeared to be decisive. By that time these five players were sharing the lead, and played against each other. Two top boards ended peacefully, and the youngest of them Lahno managed to win her most important game against Kovalevskaya, in Sveshnikov line of the Sicilian. In the final game against her compatriot Natalia Zhukova, having half a point lead and White pieces she took a clever decision and secured herself at least a tie-break for the gold after a short draw. For her opponent was left the consolation of the male GM norm that she made. Board two also ended peacefully, and now the only one who could catch with the Ukrainian was Pia Cramling. Alas, the top-rated player from Sweden could not succeed in it and suffered painful defeat against Victoria Cmilyte.
After the finish of the round one thing was clear- Kateryna Lahno wins her second European Championship. One more record has been broken!
Bronze and silver medals had to be decided on the next day, at the tie-breaks. All player on 7.5 points qualified directly for the World Cup, except Elina Danielian, Maia Lomineishvili, Julia Demina and Monika Socko who had to play qualifications for 2 places for the World Cup. The first two succeeded.
I had presented on the last game (sudden death) for the medals between Cmiliyte and Ushenina. Lithuanian played as white and win was a must. For a long time it looked like Black will stand the pressure, she had good position, but little by little problems were arising. It all ended in severe time-trouble when Cmilyte managed to give mate with only 3 seconds left on her clock.
Male part was illuminated by Emil Sutovsky’s five wins at the start. Eager to show good chess and to win Israeli GM was crushing his opponents all the way round. He showed his typical attacking chess, as well as some nice endgame technique.
Despite of his start he could never advance for more than a half point from his pursuers. 322 players is a huge field, many plusses were required. Round six started with another record the shortest resultive game in the history of EICCs was conducted:
Grigoriants,Sergey (2573) - Tregubov,Pavel V (2629) [A34]
9th European Individual Ch (m) round 6 Plovdiv BUL (6.7), 26.04.2008
1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 e5 4.e3 Nf6 5.d4 cxd4 6.exd4 e4 7.Ne5 Bb4 8.Bd2? I do not know what really happened here. Probably Grigoriants simply messed the bishop. Practically everyone plays here: [8.Be2 although Black scores well in the line.] 8...Nxd4 9.Nxe4? I can only imagine what first player’s state of mind here was. It he was a cold-blooded machine he would simply continued with: [9.a3 Ba5 10.b4 Bc7 11.Be3µ pretending that all this was a home preparation.] 9...Qe7 10.Bxb4 Qxb4+ 11.Qd2 Nxe4 0–1
Little by little Sutovsky was caught by other players, although he kept on playing for a win in all his games. Quality chess was shown by the top-seeded player Sergey Movsesian, and many young players like Levan Pantsulaia from Georgia, Rauf Mamedov (Azerbajdjan), Vachier-Lagrave from France, our young hope Valentin Iotov, etc.
Before the final round the leader’s mass grew up to eight players that were paired against each other. The general impression was that they will finish with quick draws, securing places for the World Cup, and postponing the fight for the medals for the next day. Partially this really happened after short draws on first, second, and fourth boards. Thus the central game of the round became the encounter between Sergey Tiviakov and Emil Sutovsky. What can we say about it, fantastic finish of the event. Former Russian and now living in Holland, Tiviakov managed to outplay his mighty opponent in his pet Alapin line after a well prepared novelty. At some moment the Israeli could have safe the game, but missed it. The tradition is kept-we have a ninth different champion in the male tournament.
Pity for Emil Sutovsky. His only consolation became the qualification for the World Cup. Together with Victor Laznicka they were the only players who did not play tie-breaks and qualified directly thanks to their superior Bucholz.
Some players who did not have chances for qualification did not appear for the final round, and lost on forfeit. Another unpleasant thing to be mentioned is the withdrawal from the tournament by Kiril Georgiev, for health reasons. Not everything went smoothly for Albert Muratet from Spain. Chess player and organizer of Banyoles tournament he had to undergo an appendicitis surgery. He was lucky to meet Dr. Assen Zlatarev– a physician who has worked in Mexico for years. In perfect Spanish he broke the language barrier between them, explained the seriousness of the situation, and convinced Albert to undergo the surgery immediately at the same day. Later Albert recovered in the VIP room of the hospital. This is what the Spaniard said:
“I cannot express my gratitude to all the people I inadvertently involved in this drama. Here, at the hospital everyone is very kind and caring, and Dr. Zlatarev often comes by to chat with me in Spanish. The organisers of the Championship surprise me pleasantly all the time with their attention. The tournament director Mr. Nikolay Velchev and the superintendent Mr. Zhivko Zhekov were here on the very day of the operation and have inquired about me ever since. Yesterday I was touched when the manager of the “Nord” hotel where I was accommodated, Mr. Petko Bogoev came in person and brought me some personal necessities, for which I am very grateful. “
The fight for the medals was even tenser than in the women event, since nine players took part. Two more Sergeys met in the final match for second-third place, and the higher rated one-Movsesian prevailed. He won the first game, and his extreme stubbornness provided him the silver in position where he was whole three pawns down in an endgame-he even managed to win on zeitnot. Third Sergey- Volkov completed the podium with bronze. 22 players were faced in direct matches for qualifications for the World Cup. The strangest thing that happened here was Vladimir Akopian’s lost by default against his compatriot Sargissian.
The fact that the quotas for qualifications for the World Cup were leveled this year influenced the strength of Plovdiv EICCs. Turkey withdrew their nomination for host of the next event. Here an important presentation took place on the second day of the championship- representatives from Montenegro promoted Budva as a host city of the next European Championships. Promotion had good success, and it is very likely that next games will be there.
Among the activities here were validations of post stamps and envelopes dedicated to the EICCs, presentation of the book “Anthology of Bulgarian Chess” where all important chess players are presented, etc.
One “novelty” of the championship was the bulletin. We decided to make it only in electronic format, instead of the usual paper one. Efficiency was required, and the bulletin was usually ready in the early hours of the morning.
Tournament site was often visited by chess fans. About the end of the tournament the barrier of 1 000000 unique visit’s was broken.
Players had the opportunity to vote for their King and Queen of the tournament. Queen was not surprise at all-it is not the first time that Antoaneta Stefanova wins such competition. While Bulgarian IM Krasimir Rusev recognition as most attractive player came a kind of unexpectedly.
National Bulgarian Television was showing daily reports with the most important moments of the battle; the tournament was well covered in other Medias, too.
The tournament was very rich in achieved norms. I would like to point two young players-Samvel Ter-Sahakyan from Armenia, and Dariusz Swiercz from Poland. The first one achieved 7 points, and the latter 6.5. Both of them are 14 years old, for both of them this GM norm means title as well. For Dariusz his current trainer GM Alexander Sulypa (he is co-trainer with Arthur Jakubiec) shared that the young talent not only calculates well tactics, but already manages to outplay strong opponents in an endgame, too.
Only female player in the men section was Marie Sebag. She also had reason to celebrate after her final male GM norms. The exceptional French even had a chance to qualify if she had beaten A. Galkin in the final round.
Among the newborn GMs is the writer of the article. I had a very difficult tournament, since I was working for the tournament bulletin. Interviews in the morning, preparation, and immediate play, annotations for the bulletin after the games until late night. The schedule was hard, but at least I had no time for stupidities.
Among the players who achieved successes is youngest participant of the tournament-Alexander Monev. He took first price for categories performance minus rating of a player. He is a gifted twelve years kid, who is not only many-times Bulgarian youth champion, but wins as well Olympiads in Mathematics. Another name to be mentioned from host side is Kiprian Berbatov, cousin of the football player Dimitar Berbatov (Tottenham Hotspurs and before that Bayer Leverkusen).
Some small problems appeared during the tournament. First it was not very clear who is waiting at the airport for the arriving participants, in first two days the air-conditions from one of the playing halls went down (and were immediately repaired), but all in all the tournaments were perfectly organized, and most of the players satisfied. This was the first championships where players were not forced to stay in chosen hotels, which is a big plus for all.
Closing ceremony coincided with Nona Gaprindashvili’s birthday. Legendary woman champion was specially invited as honory member of the Appealing Committee. She received a unique chess set as a present by Bulgarian Chess Federation.
I would like to conclude the article with some curious moments from the event:
1. “Kiprian Berbatov wins brilliant game”-headline in a newspaper for Berbatov’s win in the first round (his opponent did not arrive).
2. “Do you remember how you played “Rc1” against me few years ago?”-a question to the astonished Valentin Iotov during his walk in Plovdiv.
3. BBCA (Balkan Beer Chess Association) was created here. The stakes are high-beer and peanuts.
4. Women showed extreme fighting spirit. In one game K and pawn versus K and B endgame appeared. No one offered draw, and the bishop did not capture the pawn; they played for more than 30 moves before draw was agreed.
5. At the closing ceremony chief arbiter Zdravko Nedev re-united the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
6. New kind of chess was created in this game:
Dimitrov,Pavel (2414) - Belov,Vladimir (2571) [C23]
9th European Individual Ch (m) round 8 PLovdiv BUL (8.83), 29.04.2008
1.e4 e5 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 f5 4.Bxg8 Nd4 5.Qd1 Qg5 6.g4
Watching the people in the piano bar in the last evening, Armenians dancing next to Azeri, opponents from previous days celebrating together, I could not help but sense the feeling that we are one family.

Test Yorself 8

Time matters. 1.Kc5 Ba2 2.Kd6 Bf7 3.h6! gxh6 4.Ke7 Bh5 5.Kf6 Be2 6.h5! Bxh5 7.Kg7 Ѕ–Ѕ

Zahodiakin

Finding the Identity

When one of my friends called me to play for Kosovo team (6-11 May) I was a little bit suspicious. “Is not it dangerous there?” “No, not at all. The war conflict is over, people are relaxed, and you will see that Prishtina is a modern European town.”
Our hotel was situated only few meters away from the memorial of Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg (pronounced “skander beu” by the locals) meaning "Lord or Leader Alexander”. In the summer of 1444, in the field of Torvioll Skanderbeg faced the Otomans and won a battle where Ottomans were much superior in forces.His victory echoed across Europe because this was only the second time when Ottoman army was defeated in Europe. In the coming years, Skanderbeg defeated the Turks two more times, once in 1445 in Moker (Dibra), and once more in 1447 in Oranik (Dibra). He organized Albanian resistance, which lasted for more than hundred years.

I am asking my team mates-“What is the difference between you and the Albanians?””There is no such, only their percentage of Muslims is less than ours.” And to my astonished gaze they explain that there are still many Orthodox Christians in Albania.
Official language here is Albanian. “It is strange mix between Indo-European and Latin language, with many Turkish words”, explains my teammate Burim Dushi. He works as an interpreter from Italian. “There is no analogue to the Albanian language in the world”, completes he. “Is it a problem if I speak Serbian?” I ask knowing that the wounds from the conflict may be still open. “No, not at all. Kosovo people are tolerant now.” Indeed they are-no matter if you speak English or Serbian, they are very polite with the strangers.
Most of the buildings in Prishtina are new, with modern facades. Kosovo is place rich of minerals-gold and silver, nickel, copper, coals. One good pledge for the future.
People really look very calm. On 9-th of May (day of EU) celebrations started from early morning. Pupils from all schools had a dancing competition that lasted till night.
Some more information about the team competition. Eight teams play round-robin tournament on six boards where match points are counted. All teams have the right of two foreign players. Some of them make use of the fact- “Istog” has GMs Vasil Spasov (BUL) and Trayko Nedev (FYROM), “Theranda”- GM Petar Genov (BUL) and IM Dritan Mehmeti (ALB), my team “RWE Power” Kosovo has also GM Alexander Delchev (BUL), and “Llamkos” has even three foreign players GMs Kiril Georgiev (BUL), Vladimir Georgiev (FYROM) and Jozsef Pinter (HUN). They change their top boards. Those teams who cannot afford strong foreigners use tactical weapons. One usual strategy is to place two “victims” on top boards and leave strong back-field. “Pristina” team had very strong backbone of local players.
First two team qualify for European Club Cup and last two drop down in second division.
Chess is struggling to survive here. In our competition every team has to bring 3 chess-sets with it. But what chess-sets these are...from beautiful wood Staunton to the most ordinary broken plastics. I played a game with one which knights were broken. Good it was that I managed to exchange them quickly...People lack clocks, arbiters, trainers. My team-boss Burhan Musini was the chief-arbiter of the event, and works as a secretary in Kosovo Chess Federation. Most of the players were not very used with the digital clocks, which caused some inconveniences.
Despite of all the negatives one thing is sure-locals are burning into the game. I can give you one colorful example-a player had a knight, rook and two pawns against opponent’s bishop and rook. But he lost the pawns and his opponent offered a draw. Frustrated, the first one declined it and eventually won. Every day there were not only chess but verbal clashes as well. And if you sit to analyze near the locals, you may not have the chance to show many moves, since they are eager to show what they saw, or to ask you why not you played this, or that move.
Burim, being quite an impressive person told me that he dreamt my first game against Nedev, and found an improvement in his dream! And the decisive encounter from the previous year between A. Delchev and T. Petrossian was analyzed for a whole month.
Boris Spassky told the story about the waiter who was coming to take orders during the game and regretted that there are no more tournaments like this. But he is wrong-this still happens in Kosovo. We were playing in a restaurant Glass House and waiters were coming to take our orders while we were playing.
And people have ideas-they want to visit some arbiter’s seminars, to open a chess-school where not only students will study, but volunteers who want to become chess teachers themselves. They are also planning international match against Kuwait, strong open tournament with 20000 euro price-fund.
I wish them good luck.
Final Standings:
1. Istog 13 points 2. Llamkos 12 3. Prishtina 9 4. RWE Power Kosovo 7 (eight teams in total.)

Bojkov,D (2492) - Mehmeti,D (2419), R4, Kosovo Teams

21.Ne5 Nxe5 22.dxe5 f5 23.Nxd5 Qb5 24.Qh5 Qb7 25.Nf4 bxc3 26.Ng6+ 1–0

Ivanchuk Remained on Top

Ukrainian GM concluded the M-Tel Masters tournament in style, winning his final game against Ivan Cheparinov. The latter finished fourth, and achieved a lot of experience in his last two tournaments. Ivanchuk became the first foreigner (first not-Topalov) winner. His result is simply great, 6 wins and 4 draws. In the last game he did not go for passive defense, although draw would suffice for overall victory, and played sharp line, which proved him right. Ivanchuk’s win is good for the event, since many people expected that winner will be again ex-world champion Topalov, which might have made the tournament predictable and boring.
Veselin Topalov is second. His final encounter against Radjabov ended peacefully, although Azeri sacrificed a queen for only two bishops and had great chances to win. Some annotators called the game “the pearl” of the tournament. Tejmour Radjabov took clear third.
In the fight for the fifth place Aronian and Bu drew, and shared 5-6 places. The Chinese managed to recover in the last 3 games, while Aronian did not show the excellent chess that he is capable of.




Dejan Junior was more interested by the statues of the owls rather than chess...

Sasho Andreev wins First M-Tel Juniors Tournament

One good thing has started yesterday. Bulgaria will host not only Top-tournament, but junior tournaments as well. This is where the future starts. All players born after 01.01.1994 had the right to take part in the event. 76 did. One won. His name is Sasho Andreev from Svilengrad, a boy, who recently won the Bulgarian youth championship with Fisher-like result-9/9. He faced strong opposition in the finals-Kiprian Berbatov. Actually the latter defeated him in the final game of the Swiss qualification, but Sasho finished second, and in the match managed to win 2-1.
The winner received a lap-top, runner-up DGT clock, and all the children were presented small gifts and nice memories when Boris Spassky paid attention to the closing ceremony.

Donika Shivacheva

Chess Sweater

General View

Round Six Open-Berbatov won against Andreev

In the Final they meet Again, this time Sasho takes revenge

The Champion-Sasho Andreev
Darena Sirkova
Alexander Monev

Cveta Galunova

More pictures on the official site.

Levski Surprises

I was wrong. Much to my surprise PFC “Levski” managed to win against Chess United. 3-2. Despite of the fact that they almost broke all the negative records in the history of the club. Despite of the additional support that “Chess United” had in the names of Zurab Azmajparashvili and Petar Stoychev-Bulgaria’s best marathon swimmer ever. And even despite of the brilliant Ivanchuk as a goalkeeper! “We need to arrest Ivanchuk”, joked Danailov for radio Gong after the match. “He was a discovery as a goalkeeper. He plays strongly both chess and football. So far he is ingenious!”
Round six started with a minute of silence for the victims of earthquake in China. Thousands of people died in the disaster. We all sympathize with the Chinese people.


Some positive news came from Sofia with the arrival of Boris Spassky. Legendary GM went straight into the commentary studio and started to entertain the public. “The best tournament that I have ever played was in 1950”, “it was great- a waiter was coming during the game, and you could order anything you want to drink (even some vodka if you like) during the game. Pity, there are no longer tournaments organized in this manner…””But did not anyone protest against this”-asked someone from the public. “Oh, yes, and it was the strongest player of the event-Vasily Smislov.” Spassky kept on pleasing the audience with his colorful memories, excellent chess and witty remarks with short pauses. You may follow his comments in internet. Today the President of the Republic of Bulgaria Georgi Parvanov will officially receive Boris Spassky at 13:00 local time. Great champion will play a simultaneous exhibition against journalists and Krasimir Kushev from National TV is already asking me how to face 1.e4. “Sicilian-I advise him, play a long battle against his favorite Closed system”. We shall see if this will work well

One other legendary player paid attention to the tournament as well-Ivan Radulov. Many-times Bulgarian champion and one of our best players ever Ivan still plays chess actively if a chance arise.
Among the audience I saw current Bulgarian female champion-Elitza Raeva.
Gm Vladimir Dimitrov is here as well. He is a long-time trainer of Ivan Cheparinov, and was with him in Baku for the Grand-Prix. “I have some rest now”, and in the meantime annotates life the game Ivanchuk-Radjabov for chessdom.com.
In the meantime Ivanchuk opted for open game against Radjabov, and had to face the Sveshnikov line. Ukrainian looked confident and spend something like six minutes in the opening but when Radjabov introduced the novelty 20…Rbe8 sank into deep thought, and decided to keep it save with 21.Nc6. Critical were both 21.Na6 or 21.Qd6, but I guess that Ivanchuk’s sense of danger prevented him from capturing any of the pawn. 21.Nc6 led to mass exchanges, and with accurate play the game ended peacefully. The leader dropped his first half point!
For the audience’s enormous pleasure he did not leave the tournament hall immediately, but joined Spassky, and they both started a deep exploring of the game Bu-Cheparinov. Ukrainian’s devotion to chess is simply exceptional.

Ivan Cheparinov tried to explore his opponent’s passive play in the opening. On move 8 he jumped with his knight on e4, and later supported it with f5. A kind of favorable Stonewall arisen and in the doubled-edged game Bulgarian felt better. Little by little he managed to create an attack on the King’s flank, and on move 40 effectively sacrificed a whole rook that netted him a full point (40…Rg3-h3!)
At the press-conference after the game journalists ask Bu what is the reason for his passive play, on which the Chinese replied that although he may play passive sometimes, but today he felt that at some moment he even had the upper hand.
With his win Cheparinov went on 50% average, which gives him clear third for the moment.

Veselin Topalov had a long battle against Levon Aronian. He got some slight edge out of the opening, but the Armenian defended well, and it looks like that he could easily share the point with 33…Rd3. Instead he went for a wrong plan, lost a pawn, and even his witty tricks could not safe the day. “What is this, is it some joke?” asked Paco Vallejo when seeing Aronian’s 49…Rd6. And then quoted a long forced line that wins for white. Topalov did not make use of his second’s suggestion but won in a safer way, and now the distance between him and Ivanchuk is one point.
Today their game was drawn after a long battle.

Chesspro on Plovdiv

My good friend GM Mikhail Golubev wrote an article concerning the EICC in Plovdiv:
ЧТО ПОПАЛО
Тема сегодняшнего обзора - творческие достижения чемпионата Европы. Так называемого мужского. Хотя мужского чемпионата не существует, а есть чемпионаты общий и женский.
Что-то убавив и что-то прибавив, в основном ограничиваюсь тронувшими за душу примерами из промелькнувших в издании Chess Today, а также в бюллетенях чемпионата, над аналитической составляющей которых потрудился коллега и хороший приятель Деян Божков.
При подборе поединков считал обязательным отразить успех главного героя - нового чемпиона континента Сергея Тивякова. (И вот с таким человеком мне как-то запретил согласиться на ничью особо проницательный капитан команды в немецкой бундеслиге!). Так что решающая партия, конечно же, присутствует. В остальном, включаю то, что попалось на глаза и смогло удержаться в сфере внимания.
The rest (in Russian as well) you can find here:
http://chesspro.ru/_events/2008/europe1.html