Squads for European Team Championships

[David Sedgwick]

and Nigel maybe has to be careful

Poor Nigel. He's now botched it beyond redemption, a game he was hitherto never losing.

It would be unfair to accuse Nigel of a lack of care, as he took 14 minutes over the critical move.

Sadly, he got it horribly wrong.

[Paul Dargan]

Yep Rg7 and Nf5# is a nasty trick to run into ... as others have said seemed to be nicely holding a small edge, can never lose kind of position ...

Again as others have said - for some reason very easy to relate to ...

Paul

[Tim Harding]

Luke has won.

[Chris Rice]

Well done Luke saving what might be an important half match point in a round with plenty of hard fought matches and a surprise or two:

Open:

Round 1 with some interesting results

1. (1) Russia - (21) Slovenia 2½:1½
2. (22) Italy - (2) Azerbaijan 2½: 1½
4. (24) Moldova - (4) England 2:2
5. (5) Israel - (25) Norway 2:2

Round 2 sees England paired with Norway on Board 9.

In the Women's section all the results in Round 1 went the way the seedings predicted including:

7. (7) Hungary - (23) England 3 : 1
7.1 GM Hoang, Thanh Trang 2438 - IM Houska, Jovanka 2393 ½ - ½
7.2 IM Lazarne Vajda, Szidonia 2364 - IM Ciuksyte, Dagne 2318 ½ - ½
7.3 IM Gara, Anita 2382 - WIM Maroroa, Sue 2077 1 - 0
7.4 WGM Gara, Ticia 2317 - FM Kalaiyalahan, Akshaya 2026 1 - 0

In Round 2 England are playing Greece 1

[NickFaulks]

Round 2 sees England paired with Norway on Board 9.

Who gets the short straw on board 2 tomorrow, black v Hammer?

[Tim Harding]

Round 2 sees England paired with Norway on Board 9.

Who gets the short straw on board 2 tomorrow, black v Hammer?

David Howell. Nigel is rested.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Round 2 sees England paired with Norway on Board 9.

Who gets the short straw on board 2 tomorrow, black v Hammer?

David Howell. Nigel is rested.

For what it is worth, I think that is right, if only so that Nigel can probably return with a White tomorrow. Board two is hard enough as it is (as we should know by now, it is very much our Achilles heel in thse top international events) without the nominated board two starting with two tough Blacks after an unfortunate start in the first.

[Jonathan Rogers]

early days, but we seem to be massaging our positions with White rather effectively. The mens' match, that is. In the women's, we have the unusual spectacle of a Stockfish +2 assessment (for them) on board three, in a position where all 32 pieces are still on the board! Hopefully it is not all so obvious to the human playing White, or, quite conceivably, the SF assessment is not fully to be trusted.

[Reg Clucas]

In the women's, we have the unusual spectacle of a Stockfish +2 assessment (for them) on board three, in a position where all 32 pieces are still on the board! Hopefully it is not all so obvious to the human playing White, or, quite conceivably, the SF assessment is not fully to be trusted.

They've now agreed a draw. The Black position still looks horrible, but how does White break through?

[David Robertson]

Luke McShane's struggle today provides me with a perverse kind of comfort. It means I needn't feel that bad about the ease with which Benjamin Arvola brushed me off the board in the 4NCL two years back like ash off a young man's sleeve

[John Moore]

Did anyone understand the opposite coloured bishop ending in Botsari - Houska. White rejected the chance to play Bh6 and create two widely separated passed pawns on a number of occasions. Surely it's simply winning as any Russian infant knows. But well done to Jovanka for keeping a straight face.

[John Moore]

Well done to the Scots for making 4 draws and getting off the mark.

[Chris Rice]

Round 2 of the Open only saw one mild surprise when the Netherlands beat Ukraine 2½-1½. Giri beat Eljanov on Board 1 while the three Dutchman on Boards 2-4 who were all outrated managed to draw their games. Hungary, Netherlands, Armenia, Czech Republic, Italy, Croatia, Russia are all on 100%. England after yesterday's nervy draw came through gloriously:

Bo. (4) England - (25) Norway 3:1
9.1 GM Adams, Michael 2727 - GM Tari, Aryan 2578 ½-½
9.2 GM Howell, David W L 2698 - GM Hammer, Jon Ludvig 2632 1-0
9.3 GM Jones, Gawain C B 2662 - IM Christiansen, Johan-Sebastian 2462 1-0
9.4 GM Mcshane, Luke J 2647 - IM Notkevich, Benjamin Arvola 2458 ½-½

Howell tweeted later "I was hoping I'd play Tari to get revenge for the World Cup!"

Nigel Short who was benched for this game, took it well tweeting "If you take credit for the victories, you must also take responsibility for the defeats. A tough day in #Crete". He also tweeted "A great day at #ETCC2017 England defeat Norway & @loekvanwely apologised for a most unnecessary incident at Hoogeveen 2016. Let's move on." This was a reference to the 6th game in his match against Hou Yifan covered in this ChessBase article.

I would echo John Moore's congrats to Scotland as they drew on all the boards despite being heavily outrated on all of them against the Faroe Islands. Coming back like that after getting walloped 4-0 by the Romanians in Round 1 was impressive.

In Round 3 England have a tough match up with Poland while Scotland take on the FYROM, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a country that for the longest time has been involved with one of the stupidest issues ever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_naming_dispute.

In Round 2 of the Women's section again it went pretty much according to the seeding. Israel, Georgia, Spain, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Hungary and Russia have all won twice. Another loss for England:

Board 9 (17) Greece 1 - (23) England 3:1
9.1 WGM Botsari, Anna-Maria 2287 - IM Houska, Jovanka 2393 ½-½
9.2 WGM Tsolakidou, Stavroula 2340 - IM Ciuksyte, Dagne 2318 1-0
9.3 WIM Pavlidou, Ekaterini 2198 - FM Kalaiyalahan, Akshaya 2026 ½-½
9.4 FM Avramidou, Anastasia 2257 - WFM Bhatia, Kanwal K 2080 1-0

However, in Round 3 England are paired with the 29th seeds Belgium so fingers crossed they will get a result tomorrow.

[MartinCarpenter]

Good result for Scotland, but I do have to say that the idea of their being notably out rated by the Faroe islands....

[Alex Holowczak]

Good result for Scotland, but I do have to say that the idea of their being notably out rated by the Faroe islands....

I think it would be fair to say that the team isn't what you'd call a Scottish 1st team; their board 1 is their 11th highest-rated player. However, the Faroes have got their top 5 rated players in their team.