NEWSLETTER 101 (December 17, 2012)

THE ECU PRESIDENT SILVIO DANAILOV MET WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF ANDORRA, MR. ANTONI MARTI PETIT On 14th December, 2012 the President of the European Chess Union Silvio Danailov met with the President of the Government of Andorra, Mr. Antoni Marti Petit.

They discussed the ECU program „Chess in school‟ and Mr. Petit gave his full support concerning the implementation of the program in the educational system of Andorra.

During his official visit, Mr. Danailov met with the President of the Andorran Chess Federation, Mr. Francesc Rechi and the management: Mr. Joan Anton Obregon, Delegate, Mr.Josep Antoni Rivero, Secretary and Mr. Oscar De La Riva Aguado, Technical Director.

Mr. Silvio Danailov was invited as a special guest to the French College of Andorra where he observed a lesson in chess and got familiar with the introduction of the ancient game into the educational system of the principality.

Official website: www.ecuonline.net

ECU TOURNAMENT RULES COMING INTO EFFECT FROM 1st OF JANUARY 2013

General Assembly of the European Chess Union which has been recently held in Istanbul adopted the changes and annexes of the ECU Tournament Rules which shall come into effect from 1st January 2013.

The new rules can be downloaded here: http://www.ecuonline.net/com/news/single/337.html

The main topics of the document’s content are:

A. Preface B. General Tournament Regulations C. Bid Procedure D. Individual European Chess Championship E. European Team Championship F. European Club Cup and European Club Cup for Women G. European Youth Championship H. European Youth Team Championship I. European Rapid and Blitz Championship and European Rapid and Blitz Championship for Women J. European Amateur Chess Championship K. European Grand Prix L. European Internet Rules M. Swiss System for Team Competitions

Annex 1: Catalogue of criteria for the bid procedure Annex 2: Entry Fees and their Distribution Annex 3: Bid Fees and Deposit Fees Annex 4: Standards for ECU Tournaments Annex 5: Guidelines concerning fees for the arbiters and members of the Appeals Committee in European Championships

Official website: www.ecuonline.net

WATCH THE REPORT OF ZDF TV CHANNEL ABOUT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROGRAM ‘CHESS IN SCHOOL’ IN SLIVNITSA Watch the report of the German ZDF TV channel about the implementation of the program “Chess in school” of the European Chess Union in the educational system of the town of Slivnitsa, Bulgaria.

As we have already informed you, impressed by the introduction of chess as a subject in the Slivnitsa school “St.st. Cyril and Methodius” the influential media sent a special team to provide the story about this innovative and exciting initiative.

You can watch the full report of the German journalists, following this link: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/1776486/Schach-als-Unterrichtsfach#/beitrag/video/1776486/Schach-als- Unterrichtsfach

The news about the joint initiative of the European Chess Union and the municipality of Slivnitsa received wide international response and was reported by many media, even by European political newspapers like the Brussels based edition New Europe (www.neurope.eu/article/first-eu-municipality-introduces-chess-school-subject) and others. Website: www.danailov-for-president.com

GRANDMASTERS MAXIME VACHIER-LAGRAVE AND ALEKSEY DREEV NEW BLITZ AND RAPID CHAMPIONS Chess players and spectators from all over the world have already got used to the idea that European Blitz and Rapid chess championships take place in Warsaw in the middle of December. Each year many strong players from over 20 European countries gather to fight for medals. This year‟s competition was a great success again– it is not common that more than 700 chess players participate in tournaments, with over 50 of them being with grandmaster title.

EUROPEAN INDIVIDUAL BLITZ CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2012 As usual, the event consisted of two parts – blitz was played on Friday and rapid took place during the entire weekend. Though Friday\\\'s tournament attracted fewer players, the strongest participated in both tournaments. And it took a lot of power, stamina and physical resistance to earn a golden medal. That is why it is even more impressive that the current winner, French Grandmaster Maxime Vachier- Lagrave managed to win the golden medal for the second time (the previous one in 2010).

Blitz tournament, as in previous years, consisted of 11 double rounds (22 games). Maxime won the tournament with a splendid finish as he won last 6 matches against such strong players like Naiditsch, Friedman, Motylev, Sargissian, Bukavshin and Romanov. He finished with a fantastic 18, 5/22, not losing any single match. Gabriel Sargissian from Armenia won the second place, with one point behind and he was the only player who kept pace with the winner. Vladislav Tkachev of France took the third place, though he suffered an unexpected 2-0 defeat in 4th round against Polish young FM, Kacper Drozdowski.

Full results: http://www.poloniachess.pl/amplico2012/blitz/results.html?l=pl&tb=10_

Photos: http://www.poloniachess.pl/amplico2012/pl/gallery/blitz

EUROPEAN INDIVIDUAL RAPID CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2012 European Rapid Chess Championship took place 15-16 December 2012 in Warsaw. The tournament venue was situated in the Palace of Culture and Science. High prize fund of 22, 000 Euro attracted 775 players from 27 countries including 67 Grandmasters, with 7 of them rated over 2700. The tournament consisted of 11 rounds with the rate of play being 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. In case of equal score, players with higher average rating than opponents were privileged, as no tie-breaks were to be played.

First place was tied by 4 players, but the golden medal went to the first seeded Aleksey Dreev from Russia, who scored 9, 5 points out of 11 games and received 4.000 Euros. Silver medal was won by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who left Warsaw with two medals. Bronze was taken by Alexei Shirov, who impressed spectators with outstanding finish (4 out of last 4 games). Least luck had Sergei Rublevsky who took the fourth place due to the lowest rating performance.

Apart from the main prizes, organizers prepared many additional ones: for the best women and seniors as well as special prizes for the rating and age categories. The best woman out of one hundred taking part in the tournament was Laura Rogule from Latvia, who was also the best woman in the blitz tournament. Written by Stanislaw Zawadzki

Source of information: www.ecuonline.net

EUROPEAN SENIOR CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP /PLOVDIV, BULGARIA – 10-22.03.2013/

The European Senior Chess Championship will be held on March 10-22.2013 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Dear Federations, Bulgarian Chess Federation would like to inform you, that the registration form is already active. Username and password has been sent to all European National Federations to the e-mails, pointed at the list.

Registrations will be made only through the online system. If you have any special needs and requests, please note them at the remark field. The registration system will be open from 00:00 CET on December 6th 2012 till 24:00 CET on February 10th 2013. After that, federations will not be able to register or modify any registrations. After this date all the registrations have to be confirmed by the European Chess Union.

For more information, please visit the official website of the championship!

Official website: www.escc2013.eu

WGM PETRA PAPP IS THE NEW HUNGARIAN WOMEN CHESS CHAMPION WGM Petra Papp is the new Hungarian Women Chess Champion. She won the championship with final result of 6.5 points from possible 9. Second finished WGM Ticia Gara on a half point distance from the winner, third is WIM Eszter Dudas with the same result.

Source of the photo: budapestchesnews.blogspot.com The Hungarian Women Chess Champion - Ship was held on December 04-12.2012. Chief-Arbiter of the tournament was Varga Peter FA. Final Ranking after 9 rounds Rk. Title Name Rtg Pts. TB1 TB2 TB3 1 WGM Papp Petra 2254 6.5 5 26 0 2 WGM Gara Ticia 2377 6 4 24.8 0 3 WIM Dudas Eszter 2243 6 4 24.5 0 4 WGM Schneider Veronika 2306 5 4 17.3 0 5 WGM Rudolf Anna 2322 5 3 20.8 0 6 Erdos Boglarka 2185 4.5 4 17 0 7 WIM Varga Klara 2210 4 2 18.3 0 8 Juhasz Barbara 2085 3.5 1 13.8 0 9 WIM Goczo Melinda 2234 3 0 13.5 0 10 Ruszin Anna 2133 1.5 0 5.25 0

Official website: http://chess.hu

BARTOSZ SOCKO AND ALEKSANDRA GORYACHKINA WIN THE FINAL OF THE CUP OF RUSSIA Bartosz Socko and Aleksandra Goryachkina won the Final of the Cup of Russia.

In the final match the Polish GM defeated the Russian GM Denis Khismatullin with 1.5-0.5.

Aleksandra Goryachkina won her final

match against Olga Girya with 1.5-0.5.

Aleksandra Goryachkina

The Final of the Cup of Russia‟ 2012 was held on December 04-11, 2012 in Khanty- Mansiysk. The total number of players was 16 – 8 in the men‟s section and 8 in the women‟s section.

Each match consisted of two games with time control 90 minutes for 40 moves+30 minutes for the rest of the game+30 seconds increment per move, starting from move one (in case of tie – two rapid games with time control 15 minutes for the entire game+10 seconds increment per move, starting from move one).

Official website: www.russiachess.org

JOSIP LEKO – NEW PRESIDENT OF CROATIAN CHESS FEDERATION Electoral meeting of the Croatian Chess Federation has been held in Zagreb. After 8 years in his function as the Federation's President, Stjepan Sturlan did not run for the office this time.

The candidates for the President were Josip Leko, President of chess club "Mladost" from Zagreb and Damir Vrhovnik, International chess organizer from Rijeka.

The voting was tied and after the first round the score was 21:21! In the second round Leko gained the advantage and won the elections with the final score 22:20.

Jopis Leko is a respectable Croatian businessman and great chess enthusiast. Over the past four years he has been a member of the Managing Board of Croatian Chess Federation. Source of information: www.ecuonline.net

GM MAGNUS CARLSEN WINS LONDON CHESS CLASSIC GM Magnus Carlsen (NOR) won the 4th edition of London Chess Classic with final result of 18 points. Second, on a two points distance from the winner, finished Vladimir Kramnik (RUS). Third is Hikaru Nakamura (USA) with 13 points.

London Chess Classic was held on December 01-10, 2012 in London, UK. It was played like

9-player round robin with time control 2 hours for 40 moves+1 hour for 20 moves+15 minutes to the end of the game+30 seconds increment per move, starting from move 61.

Final Ranking after 9 rounds Rk. Name Fed. Rating Pts. 1 Magnus Carlsen NOR 2848 18 2 Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2795 16 3 Hikaru Nakamura USA 2760 13 4 Michael Adams ENG 2710 13 5 Viswanathan Anand IND 2775 9 6 Levon Aronian ARM 2815 8 7 Judit Polgar HUN 2705 6 8 Luke McShane ENG 2713 5 9 Gawain Jones ENG 2644 3

The Prize fund of the tournament was 160.000 EURO.

Official website: http://londonchessclassic.com

ITALIAN CHESS PLAYER FABIO FINOCCHIARO IS THE NEW CORRESPONDENCE WORLD CHAMPION Fabio Finocchiaro, who is 73 years old (!), lives in a village near Catania (isle of Sicily). He won the 25th edition of the Correspondence World Championship organized by ICCF. Finocchiaro got 10 points and also if a game is still running he is mathematically the new champion.

A curiosity: Finocchiaro sent the moves using the (old and classic) postcards, while all his opponents played over the Internet (using email). However, he finished all the games on time, while one (between GM Hall and GM Schroeder ) is still running!

Finocchiaro received congratulations from all over the world and first of all from the previous world champion, GM Semrl from Slovenia.

Please note that the second place depends on the results of the game Hall – Schroeder: a draw will give the second place to another Italian, Elio Vassia from Torino. See the crossing table at http://www.iccf-webchess.com/EventCrossTable.aspx?id=19811

Written by Adolivio Capece