European Club Cup under way in Rhodes

The European Club Cup is under way in Rhodes, Greece and the current holders of the cups are again the favourites this year. In the open section the team sponsored by the Azerbaijan oil company SOCAR has Fabiano Caruana, Teimour Radjabov, Veselin Topalov, Gata Kamsky, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Wang Hao, Anish Giri and Eltaj Safarli. It would be a disaster for Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo to win less than gold in the women's section, with Hou Yifan, Humpy Koneru, Anna Muzychuk, Pia Cramling and Almira Skripchenko.

The 29th European Club Cup and the 18th European Club Cup for Women are taking place 19-27 October, 2013 at the 5-star Rodos Palace Hotel in Rhodes. The Greek island, located in the eastern Aegean Sea and just off the Anatolian coast of Turkey, used to be famous worldwide for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Besides the current cup holders, two clubs are allowed to play from each European federation in which a national team championship is organised or one club from a federation that has no league. A third club is allowed from a federation with a league that included least 20 grandmasters and/or players with a FIDE rating over 2600. In the open section, one additional club was allowed this year from each federation that was ranked among the first five places of the federation ranking list (in 2013 Azerbaijan, Russia, Germany, Czech Republic and Israel).

Besides medals, for the best placed clubs and for the individual results for the best board result in the open competition, prizes to the value of 30.000 euros will be provided. In the women's section the prize fund is 20.000 euros. In addition, an individual prize of 1.000 euros will be given to the player with the best performance from a “small nations” club.

Both groups play a 7-round Swiss, from Sunday to Saturday, with no rest days. The teams consist of 6 players. In the open section 53 teams play, and so in each round the lowest ranked team gets a bye (and a 3-0 score). In the women's section only ten teams play.

The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. Players may only agree to a draw after the 40th move has been made by black. Any player who arrives at the chessboard after the start of the round shall lose the game (the zero tolerance FIDE rule that will be removed from the official rules of chess per 1 July 2014). 

It's a team event, but it's always interesting to see which are the strongest players — this is the impressive top 20: Grischuk, Nakamura, Caruana, Topalov, Karjakin, Mamedyarov, Dominguez, Giri, Vachier-Lagrave, Svidler, Morozevich, Wang Hao, Leko, Vitiugov, Kamsky, Radjabov, Jakovenko, Korobov, Malakhov and Harikrishna. The women's top 10 has Hou Yifan, Koneru, Muzychuk, Lagno, Cramling, Gunina, Cmilyte, Ushenina, Kosteniuk and Pogonina.

In the first two rounds, most of the strong teams beat (much) weaker teams with a big score. Below you can find some notable individual results and games.

On the top boards in round 1, SOCAR beat the Oslo Schakselskap 5.5-0.5 because Simen Agdestein managed to hold Fabiano Caruana to a draw, using a highly topical line in the French.

Gata Kamsky played a nice little combination - can you find it?

Simon Williams stayed true to his style, even though he was playing against none other than Sergey Karjakin. The English GM went down in flames, but just before the end it wasn't so clear actually.

In those early rounds there are always a few David vs. Goliath examples. Take this one, from the match G-Team Novy Bor vs Chess Club Velhot:

Dutch GM Roeland Pruijssers almost beat Baadur Jobava and then also gave away the draw in what was probably timetrouble:

Also in the second round, SOCAR dropped half a point on top board. IM Bjorn Ahlander played an excellent game against Radjabov:

Anish Giri got the opportunity to play a dream Benoni. Look at those pawns rolling, and those sacrifices coming!

Dutch IM Manuel Bosboom doesn't play many international events, and so it's interesting to see how this highly creative player fares at a different podium. Well, in the first round he lost to a 1900-player and then, the next day, he drew with the strong Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov!

There are many more interesting games to play through, as it is always instructive to see e.g. how 2700 GMs beat 2500 GMs. You can download the PGN here (thanks to Mark Crowther's TWIC).

European Club Cup 2013 | Round 2 standings

In the women's section, top favourites Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo started with 4-0 (obviously!) but already faced a tough opponent in round 2: Mika Chess Club of Armenia. Three games ended in draws, and so the following decided the match:

European Club Cup 2013 | Women | Round 2 standings

All photos © Goran Urosevic & Anastasiya Karlovich courtesy of the ECC