English Chess Forum

The 2018 European Club Cup is due to start next Thursday (Opening Ceremony and Captains Meeting with 1st round on Friday) and its particularly significant this year as Carlsen's playing only a few weeks before the World Championship match commences. However, its not just Magnus, there are quite a few of the top players including 3 & 4 Mamedyarov and Ding Liren on the list.
David Howell is playing for Magnus's team, Valerenga Sjakklubb, who are the fifth seeds.
There appear to be five English based teams Wood Green, Blackthorne Russia, 3Cs, Grantham Sharks & White Rose. Three Irish and one Welsh team. No Scots teams.

Chris Rice wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 12:45 am

There appear to be five English based teams Wood Green, Blackthorne Russia, 3Cs, Grantham Sharks & White Rose.

Have the eligibility rules been weakened? There is or was a rule which said you had to finish in the top half of the national team competition, which in the case of England was interpreted to mean a team finishing in the 4NCL Div 1 championship pool. I thought in previous years, the maximum number of English teams was 3.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 1:10 am

Chris Rice wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 12:45 am

There appear to be five English based teams Wood Green, Blackthorne Russia, 3Cs, Grantham Sharks & White Rose.

Have the eligibility rules been weakened? There is or was a rule which said you had to finish in the top half of the national team competition, which in the case of England was interpreted to mean a team finishing in the 4NCL Div 1 championship pool. I thought in previous years, the maximum number of English teams was 3.

No regulations about “top half of national championships” apply (eligibility stretches to countries without a national team championship). 4 teams for countries with national team champs with participation of 20 plus GMs. Additional applications can be considered by ECU board.

http://eurochess2018.com/regulations/

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 1:10 am

Chris Rice wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 12:45 am

There appear to be five English based teams Wood Green, Blackthorne Russia, 3Cs, Grantham Sharks & White Rose.

Have the eligibility rules been weakened? There is or was a rule which said you had to finish in the top half of the national team competition, which in the case of England was interpreted to mean a team finishing in the 4NCL Div 1 championship pool. I thought in previous years, the maximum number of English teams was 3.

Ireland applied for a fourth team the last 2 years and were permitted but on both occasions a team pulled out last minute. We used to only be permitted 2 by the rules - now its three.

Richard Bates wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 8:49 am

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 1:10 am

Chris Rice wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 12:45 am

There appear to be five English based teams Wood Green, Blackthorne Russia, 3Cs, Grantham Sharks & White Rose.

Have the eligibility rules been weakened? There is or was a rule which said you had to finish in the top half of the national team competition, which in the case of England was interpreted to mean a team finishing in the 4NCL Div 1 championship pool. I thought in previous years, the maximum number of English teams was 3.

No regulations about “top half of national championships” apply (eligibility stretches to countries without a national team championship). 4 teams for countries with national team champs with participation of 20 plus GMs. Additional applications can be considered by ECU board.

http://eurochess2018.com/regulations/

Good luck Richard; I'm not sure what the pairing rules are, but I assume you'll get a very tough opponent in round 1

Good luck to all the teams (and with local bias, especially to 3Cs)

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:10 am

I'm not sure what the pairing rules are, but I assume you'll get a very tough opponent in round 1

Like the Olympiad, it's top half v bottom half by seeding in round 1.

61 teams are listed.
http://eurochess2018.com/participants/

If that doesn't change with a team dropping out, or a team coming in to avoid a bye, team 61 (Irish) will get a bye. Blackthorne, ranked at 34, would therefore get the team ranked at 4, who are St Petersburg.

Their declared squad is

1 GM Svidler Peter 2756 RUS 4102142 0,0
2 GM Vitiugov Nikita 2709 RUS 4152956 0,0
3 GM Fedoseev Vladimir 2713 RUS 24130737 0,0
4 GM Matlakov Maxim 2683 RUS 4168003 0,0
5 GM Rodshtein Maxim 2674 ISR 2806851 0,0
6 GM Alekseenko Kirill 2639 RUS 4135539 0,0
7 GM Goganov Aleksey 2592 RUS 24109959 0,0

Will all eyes be on Carlsen and whether he will be at all worried about the prospect of losing his world number one status before the match in November? Both players would (rightly) say they are focused on preparing for and winning the match, but a fair bit of psychology comes into play with this ratings business.

The current published October 2018 ratings are: Carlsen (2839) and Caruana (2827). The live ratings (after the Olympiad but before the European Club Cup) are: Carlsen (2839.0) and Caruana (2832.3).

Carlsen will lose rating points unless he wins his games. There are potentially seven games, though he may not play in all the matches. Mamedyarov (2818.5) and Ding Liren (2811.2) are also playing. Ding Liren has reached a new peak for his live rating (2811.2 as of 5 October 2018), and Mamedyarov as well (2826.2 on 30 September 2018). Whether Ding Liren will maintain his unbeaten run is another talking point.

Can we now speak of Carlsen, Caruana, Mamedyarov and Ding Liren as being the big four in the chess world? They are collectively some 25 points ahead of the rest and cover a span of 28 rating points. Going from Giri downwards for 28 points covers around 10 players.

Yes, I was thinking that. What separates them from the rest seems greater, right now, than what separates them from one another.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:52 am

Can we now speak of Carlsen, Caruana, Mamedyarov and Ding Liren as being the big four in the chess world? They are collectively some 25 points ahead of the rest and cover a span of 28 rating points. Going from Giri downwards for 28 points covers around 10 players.

According to this chart for 2018 rating performances there is an argument to include Giri ie a 'Big 5'.

Giri appears to have benefited from working with Kramnik and is heading back towards 2800
Will be interesting to see if he can keep improving

Some analysis of what Carlsen will have to do to stay as the world no 1 until the World Ch match in November:

"Carlsen likely to play 6 out of 7 games. He will need somewhere between 4 and 4.5 points to maintain his rating. 1 point below, and Caruana will be the new World #1."

This may well be a challenge for him as it's also noted here that:

"Carlsen has performed below expected in each one of his last five team tournaments and lost a total of 45 rating points."

As expected, no Magnus for the first round, David Howell steps up. Giri in full wind up mode.

Here is the women's first round pairings. No British interest and most of the start names are probably still recovering from the Olympiad.

Tough start for Richard Bates and his teammates

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:37 am

Tough start for Richard Bates and his teammates

Whatever the discussions in Batumi about how to handle odd numbers in Swiss systems, they are still giving the bye to the lowest ranked team, in this case one of the Irish teams. Of the British teams, only Wood Green in the top half, just.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:22 am

Whatever the discussions in Batumi about how to handle odd numbers in Swiss systems

Were there any?