22th European Team Chess Championship 2019

[Alex Holowczak]

the shambles in Newcastle-under-Lyme

Oh, do tell! (In the appropriate thread...)

[Richard Bates]

Mickey Adams back in the 2700 club, by the way.

[Stewart Reuben]

Keith Arkell >I wish I'd had someone like Alex on standby when I was trying to work out during play where I stood in terms of tie-break in the last round of the World Senior 5 years ago. But I guess it would in any case have been against the rules for him to communicate the valuable info to me during play.<

I was on hand and could have worked out the tiebreak BEFORE the start of the last round. To volunteer the informatio during the round would have been againt he Laws of Chess. Also horribly dangerous as it would be so easy to make a mistake. But many of you know my opinion of tiebreak systems that depend on the results of third parties. They are complete nonsense.

[Roger de Coverly]

Seeing the comments about the clash between the timing of the final round of the European teams and the Rugby lead me to muse about the likely winners in a chess competition amongst the qualifiers for the Rugby World Cup.

The initial thought was England, but Russia, USA and Georgia were amongst the also rans in the Rugby.

[Richard Bates]

Seeing the comments about the clash between the timing of the final round of the European teams and the Rugby lead me to muse about the likely winners in a chess competition amongst the qualifiers for the Rugby World Cup.

The initial thought was England, but Russia, USA and Georgia were amongst the also rans in the Rugby.

France have some pedigree in the game...

[Alex Holowczak]

Seeing the comments about the clash between the timing of the final round of the European teams and the Rugby lead me to muse about the likely winners in a chess competition amongst the qualifiers for the Rugby World Cup.

The initial thought was England, but Russia, USA and Georgia were amongst the also rans in the Rugby.

The story of Russia's qualification is interesting, however.

The European qualifying tournament was the 2017 & 2018 European Rugby Championship, with the scores added up over both seasons. Think of this competition as the 2nd Division of the Six Nations, with no promotion and relegation between them. Georgia had already qualified though, so the table was reduced to the other 5 teams, thus playing 8 games.

The process rather descended into a farce as all 5 teams complained that the others had fielded ineligible players. There was a 5 point penalty (the equivalent of a bonus point win) for every game in which one or more ineligible players played. The result of this was Belgium and Romania being issued with 30 penalty points, and Spain being issued 40 penalty points. As a result, Russia won the qualifying competition despite a modest 4-4 record across the 8 games to qualify, and Germany qualified for the inter-continental playoffs with a 2-6 record. Romania, a perennial World Cup entrant since 1987, thus failed to qualify for the first time despite a 6-2 record. Spain also failed to qualify with their 6-2 record.

In terms of other chess powerhouses, neither China nor India entered qualifying.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"The process rather descended into a farce as all 5 teams complained that the others had fielded ineligible players."

Brilliant! It does sound like chess...

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Congrats to the England team on third place, also to Gawain Jones for an individual bronze on board 4.

Struggling to find photos, these so far:

https://twitter.com/fred_blogs_/status/ ... 0648966145

Any more?

Some other tweets:

https://twitter.com/TelegraphChess/stat ... 2551900161
https://twitter.com/DavidHowellGM/statu ... 3295329281

Medals:

http://www.euro2019.ge/rating/694_IMG_6866.JPG

[Stewart Reuben]

Richard Bates
The initial thought was England, but Russia, USA and Georgia were amongst the also rans in the Rugby.

>I have thought of a new competition or - at least - a prize.<

For the Best Scoring National Team in a cycle, amalgamating

Chess, Football, Rugby, Cricket, Tennis. You can choose others. One might also allow Bridge in.
The objective would be to demonstrate that all these sports have worth

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Report from the ECF (by Tim Wall) is here:

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/bronze-in-batumi/

Final paragraph:

ECF International Director Malcolm Pein, who captained the England Open team, said ‘I am immensely proud of all our England players in the Open and Women’s teams, and the Open team’s excellent Bronze medal performance – coming after brilliant results in the Olympiad and World Teams – shows that we are now one of the very best teams in the world. The players would particularly like to record their thanks for all the messages of support and congratulations they received from ECF members throughout the event. It really boosted our spirits, knowing that the English chess community was rooting for us.’