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.