European Team Chess Championship 2021

[Jonathan Rogers]

Slovakia v England tomorrow
Iceland v Wales
Scotland v Ireland

Women:
England v Turkey

tough one for the women, still waiting to win a game over the boards (I think).

Who is going to call Scotland v Ireland?

[Tim Harding]

Perhaps, although on past evidence (and barring illness) I'd be surprised if he plays more than a couple more games, if that.

Unfortunate, but that's just the reality of being the reserve player when there is such a rating disparity from the main four boards. And of course the first round result doesn't exactly do anything other than demonstrate that.

Actually it looks now, doesn't it, that Ravi has been given his share of the games?
Though now the opposition is getting tougher I expect the English top four will play tomorrow.

As for Scotland v Ireland, the Scots have to decide who to rest, which gives them an advantage re: preparation.
Possibly not an easy call for their captain, though, as he has 0/3 and his number two has 0/2.

Two of the Irish also have only losses so far but young Zalan had a good win today. A crunch match for sure, and so we can also expect the likely Scotland-Wales and Ireland-Wales meetings later this week to be hard-fought.

[LawrenceCooper]

Bo. 24 England Rtg - 20 Turkey Rtg 0 : 0
15.1 WGM Toma, Katarzyna 2261 - IM Atalik, Ekaterina 2430
15.2 WFM Head, Louise 2069 - WIM Caglar, Sila 2250
15.3 WFM Emelianova, Maria 2113 - WFM Aydin, Gulenay 2114
15.4 WFM Bayat, Shohreh 2091 - WCM Onur, Cigdem 2015

Bo. 28 Slovakia Rtg - 5 England Rtg 0 : 0
8.1 GM Pechac, Jergus 2562 - GM Adams, Michael 2714
8.2 IM Druska, Juraj 2508 - GM Mcshane, Luke J 2667
8.3 IM Petenyi, Tamas 2458 - GM Howell, David W L 2648
8.4 IM Sahidi, Samir 2432 - IM Haria, Ravi 2497

[David Sedgwick]

Perhaps, although on past evidence (and barring illness) I'd be surprised if [Ravia Haria] plays more than a couple more games, if that.

That's not how things are working out this time.

[LawrenceCooper]

Perhaps, although on past evidence (and barring illness) I'd be surprised if [Ravia Haria] plays more than a couple more games, if that.

That's not how things are working out this time.

After today all five players in the open team will have played four games.

[John Moore]

Post deleted as being wrong in almost every respect.

[Jonathan Rogers]

What puzzles me is why the same desire to give Ravi Haria real game time on his debut is not also being shown to Zoe Varney, the equivalent young player in the women's team. When she has played, it is not as though she has been playing notably worse than any of the players on boards two to four.

[NickFaulks]

What puzzles me is why the same desire to give Ravi Haria real game time on his debut is not also being shown to Zoe Varney, the equivalent young player in the women's team.

Just speculation, but perhaps the top four in the Open team are content to get a day off while the top four women, particularly after their enforced day off, are keen to play themselves into form.

[Alistair Campbell]

The current International Director is Alan Tate and I think the selection for the European Team Championships have been difficult because so many players were unavailable.

Normally, there would be a selection committee as Alistair suggests, but I couldn't find details on the Chess Scotland website. I am not sure how effective a selection panel would be at the moment and I suspect that Alan has been primarily responsible for selecting the team.

In the circumstances, he has done an excellent job to assemble the team that he has. A number of the players are, in my opinion, significantly underrated, so I would expect Scotland to exceed expectations.

Ah – that seems vaguely familiar, but I find the CS site hard to navigate at the best of times and I don’t think there has been an AGM for a while. Was Alan elected or appointed?

The Euros have always been unpopular as historically there was little or no funding. But they offered a chance to blood new players, if that was part of the overall plan…

I love the fact that exceeding expectations is to be expected.

Who is going to call Scotland v Ireland?

Scotland to be inspired by the fitba’ and win 2.5 – 1.5

[Jonathan Rogers]

What puzzles me is why the same desire to give Ravi Haria real game time on his debut is not also being shown to Zoe Varney, the equivalent young player in the women's team.

Just speculation, but perhaps the top four in the Open team are content to get a day off while the top four women, particularly after their enforced day off, are keen to play themselves into form.

well quite; who knows? But my point is precisely that there is no real gap between most of the top four and the board five on this occasion, which rather undermines any "top four need to play themselves into form". (As if Turkey would be so obliging anyway). Admittedly I cannot say that I readily undersood selection or board order in the women's team in the first place, but the difference in treatment between the board fives in both teams is just further suggestive to me of a certain incoherence overall.

[David Shepherd]

There is though a difference between the two teams the women have lost all their matches and the men have lost only 1 match. Being in last place I can understand them wanting to play their highest rated team in order to try and get a win. The fact that the ratings may not currently reflect relative playing strength after a year and a half of very little over the board chess makes the role of a captain somewhat difficult.

[Jonathan Rogers]

There is though a difference between the two teams the women have lost all their matches and the men have lost only 1 match. Being in last place I can understand them wanting to play their highest rated team in order to try and get a win. The fact that the ratings may not currently reflect relative playing strength after a year and a half of very little over the board chess makes the role of a captain somewhat difficult.

well, it's been roughly an equally disappointing event so far for both teams, I should have thought, given the relative expectations going into the event (the women have certainly lost their first three matches in this event before). Agreed that the captain has a difficult job and likely there were colour sequences to consider (trying to avoid strings of White and Blacks for the same players). Still, the games so far support the point that there is no good reason to think of Zoe Varney as the outsider in this team.

[David Shepherd]

Still, the games so far support the point that there is no good reason to think of Zoe Varney as the outsider in this team.

Yes I agree, I will be surprised if she is not playing in each of the next two or three rounds.

[Roger de Coverly]

Agreed that the captain has a difficult job

Who are the captains?

[Mick Norris]

Malcolm Pein and Lorin D'Costa according to Chess-Results