European Team Championship November 2023

[IM Jack Rudd]

On the other hand, Britain mostly doesn't go for the board order restriction that these events typically go for; that of having to play your players in the same order every match.

[Mark Howitt]

Yeps hopefully keep all 4 playing all remaining matches...

Chess so hard for no money but I'll prob watch a bit

[LawrenceCooper]

Not one of Radjabov's better days: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 2023/6/7/1

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Exciting. Vitiugov appears to have sacrificed a piece for a winning attack against Van Foreest.

(Move transmission messed up in Mickey's game.)

[LawrenceCooper]

Exciting. Vitiugov appears to have sacrificed a piece for a winning attack against Van Foreest.

Yes, a win in 26 moves: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 2023/6/4/1

[Mick Norris]

That's a good win for Nikita

David looks better, Mickey and Luke fairly level

[Nick Burrows]

Splat!!!

[John Saunders]

(Move transmission messed up in Mickey's game.)

Yes, I also noticed that lichess messed up the move transmission of the Bok-Adams game, but chess.com got it right. Just in case anyone following on lichess was wondering, the moves were as follows:

[Event "Euro Team Ch"] [Site "Budva"] [Date "2023.11.17"] [Round "6.15"] [White "Bok, Benjamin"] [Black "Adams, Michael"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "E07"] [WhiteElo "2621"] [BlackElo "2670"] [PlyCount "85"] [EventDate "2023.11.??"] [EventType "team-match"] [EventCountry "MNE"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 Bb4+ 5. Nd2 O-O 6. Ngf3 b6 7. O-O Bb7 8. b3 Nbd7 9. Bb2 Be7 10. Rc1 c5 11. e3 a5 12. Ne5 cxd4 13. Bxd4 Nxe5 14. Bxe5 Rc8 15. Qf3 Nd7 16. Bd4 Bf6 17. Qg4 e5 18. Ba1 e4 19. cxd5 Bxa1 20. Rxc8 Qxc8 21. Rxa1 f5 22. Qd1 Bxd5 23. Rc1 Nc5 24. Bf1 Rd8 25. Qc2 h6 26. Nc4 Bxc4 27. Bxc4+ Kh7 28. Rd1 g6 29. Kg2 h5 30. h4 Rxd1 31. Qxd1 Qd7 32. Qa1 b5 33. Be2 Qd2 34. Qf6 Qxe2 35. Qf7+ Kh8 36. Qf8+ Kh7 37. Qf7+ Kh8 38. Qf8+ Kh7 39. Qe7+ Kg8 40. Qe8+ Kg7 41. Qe7+ Kg8 42. Qe8+ Kg7 43. Qe7+ 1/2-1/2

[John Saunders]

The England women's team might be about to snatch a match victory...

8/1p4pp/3bR1k1/8/8/5RP1/2r2BK1/3r4 b - - 5 41

Here the Spanish player Sabina Vega Gutierrez chose the wrong square for her king and with best play Lan Yao can now reach a draw after being in a bad position since about move 20.

[LawrenceCooper]

Luke has won so 2.5-0.5 plus David.

As John says above Lan Yao may save her game which would be enough to win the match.

[Mark Howitt]

I predict these things... call me mystic Mark

[Jonathan Rogers]

Well, it wouldn't be our first 3.5-0.5 win over the Netherlands... I was trying to think the other day against which (major) European countries we do have good records, and perhaps Netherlands is - or is now - the first answer.

Meanwhile Azerbaijan are about to lose their third match, this time to Greece, as though to remind us that although we have (as so often) had seemingly kind pairings, nothing is that easy in this event.

[Mick Norris]

Good win for England women too

[John Moore]

Great results for the England teams!

[Matt Mackenzie]

Well, it wouldn't be our first 3.5-0.5 win over the Netherlands... I was trying to think the other day against which (major) European countries we do have good records, and perhaps Netherlands is - or is now - the first answer

It also helps that one country we normally lose to - Russia (and before that the USSR) are out of action at present.