NEWSLETTER 163 (July 04, 2014)

SYMBOLIC CAPITALS OF THE EUROPEAN CHESS UNION

The ECU team has developed wide strategy to encourage the cross-border cooperation between the national federations and increase the level of partnership in different chess areas among them. One of the important measures in this strategy is the initiative called SYMBOLIC CAPITALS OF THE EUROPEAN CHESS UNION.

The initiative’s plan is to have two European cities (from different countries) chosen together to be symbolic capitals of the European Chess Union for a certain period of time. During that term they will organize and implement different joint events, initiatives, seminars, cross-border tournaments, twinnings between the cities, meetings of the ECU Board members and ECU President with the representatives of the national federations, etc.

During the next mandate of the European Chess Union every national federation will have a symbolic capital.

The European Chess Union has already realized two similar events – the friendly matches Sofia-Belgrade and Sofia-Zagreb. Valuable experience gained in this respect will be used as a base for the future development and implementation of the initiative Symbolic Capitals of the European Chess Union. Let us, for example, remind you that after the official opening ceremony of the match Sofia-Zagreb, both Mayors, Mrs. Yordanka Fandakova and Mr. Milan Bandic signed a memorandum of cooperation between the two capitals concerning various important aspects of the municipal life.

We strongly believe that this will be a very successful way for improvement of the overall ECU activity and will bring many different benefits for the national federations, their countries and development of the European chess, which is our main goal.

www.ecuonline.net

ESCC KAVALA 2014 – TURKEY THE BEST IN FINAL TEAM STANDINGS, RUSSIA CAPTURES MOST MEDALS

The European School Chess Championship 2014, which took place in Kavala/Greece, from 13-27 June, 2014 was finished yesterday.

We got 12 winners in 12 different categories.

The playing venue was Kavala Archaeological Museum, a very nice and interesting place, which must have inspired and motivated all the participants.

The winners in the each category are as follows: Open U7 Girls U7 1. Rajat Makkar (FRA) 7 points 1. Aysel Salimova (AZE) 8 points 2. Ayhan Jabbarli (AZE) 7 points 2. Kayis Gulcan Sena (TUR) 8 points 3. Vyacheslav Kochetov (RUS) 6.5 points 3. Murtaj Heydarli (AZE) 7 points Open U9 Girls U9 1. Isik Can (TUR) 8.5 points 1. Galina Mironenko (RUS) 7.5 points 2. Harvey Y. Zhang (ENG) 7.5 points 2. Margarite Zvereva (RUS) 7 points 3. Aydin Suleymanli (AZE) 7 points 3. Eva Stepanyan (RUS) 7 points Open U11 Girls U11 1. Mahammad Muradli (AZE) 7 points 1. Gergana Peycheva (BUL) 7.5 points 2. Kagan Aydincelebi (TUR) 7 points 2. Leya Garifullina (RUS) 6.5 points 3. Aleksey Geshko (RUS) 7 points 3. Defne Sade (TUS) 6.5 points Open U13 Girls U13 1. Deniz Ozen (TUR) 7 points 1. Aleksandra Obolentseva (RUS) 7.5 points 2. Anton Konaplev (RUS) 7 points 2. Duru Okuyaz (TUR) 7 points 3. Vugar Asadli (AZE) 6.5 points 3. Viktoria Radeva (BUL) 6.5 points Open U15 Girls U15 1. Volkan Sevgi (TUR) 7.5 points 1. Anastasia Avramidou (GRE) 7 points 2. Parviz Gasimov (AZE) 7 points 2. Irina Drogovoz (RUS) 6.5 points 3. Rustam Bunyatov (AZE) 6.5 points 3. Narmin Mammadova (AZE) 6.5 points Open U17 Girls U17 1. Vsevolod Ovchinnikov (RUS) 8 points 1. Nataliy Pavlova (RUS) 7.5 points 2. Siar Yaran (TUR) 5.5 points 2. Aytan Amrayeva (AZE) 7.5 points 3. Okan Bulgurlu (TUR) 5 points 3. Zsuzsanna Terbe (HUN) 6.5 points ***

According to the information announced on the official website of the tournament, the Final Team Standings are as follows:

Rk. Team FED Points

1 Turkey TUR 38

2 Russia RUS 37,5

3 Azerbaijan I AZE 34,5

4 Azerbaijan II AZE 32

5 Bulgaria BUL 31,5

6 England 30,5

7 Azerbaijan III AZE 30

8 Greece GRE 29

9 Moldova MDA 29

10 Israel(Rehovot Chess School) ISR 28,5

11 Azerbaijan IV AZE 26,5

12 Azerbaijan VI AZE 26

13 Romania ROU 25

14 Azerbaijan V AZE 21,5

15 Azerbaijan VII AZE 17,5

Russia captured 4 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze medals, which amounts to 11 in total. Turkey took home 3 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze medals, while Azerbaijan won 2 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze medals. This Championship will be remembered by the record number of participants – 418 of them from 21 countries.

For more information, you can visit the official website of the Championship http://www.chesskavala.gr/euroschools2014/

VICTOR MIKHALEVSKI AND OLGA VASILIEV ARE THE NEW ISRAELI CHAMPIONS The Israeli championships finished this week in Beer-Sheva. Since 2013 these events are funded by "Mifal Hapais" – Israel's National Lottery Organization headed by Uzi Dayan, a former general in the IDF, who did a lot to help chess in Israel.

In addition to our national championship, Mifal Hapais has been sponsoring chess classes for children in remote areas where there is no organized chess activity.

All the participants of the Open (32) and Women (10) championship received free accommodation at the Leonardo Hotel in Beer-Sheva, and the prizes for the winners were also more generous than in previous years. Many leading Israeli GMs took part in the open championship, and the fight for the prizes was very intense.

At the end two grandmasters shared first place with 6.5/9: Victor Mikhalevski who led all the way right from the start but had to fight hard for a draw against top seed Ilia Smirin in the final round and Alexander Huzman who finished the tournament with an important win against second seed Evgeny Postny. Mikhalevski was declared the new champion due to better tiebreak.

Third place was shared by GMs Dan Zoler, Vitali Golod, Michael Roiz and Ilya Smirin with 6/9. The rest of the prizewinners were Asaf Givon, Tal Baron, Pinchas Kantarji, Evgeny Postny and Ido Ben-Artzi (5.5), Boris Kantsler and Uriel Arlinsky (5).

The Women championship ended in a clear win for WIM Olga Vasiliev ahead of WIM Ludmila Tsifanskaya and 16-year-old Limor Altshul.

Tournament Director and Chief Arbiter was IA Almog Burstein who was helped a lot by his team of FA Alon Cohen-Revivo, Mikhail Klenburg, Ilana David-Glaz and Ram Soffer. By Ram Soffer Official website: http://www.chess.org.il

FORTHCOMING TOURNAMENTS

PLOVDIV READY TO HOST THE BEST EUROPEAN WOMEN CHESS PLAYERS On Saturday, 5th July, 2014 at 7 pm the opening ceremony of the 15th European Individual Women's Chess Championship will be held in the hotel Novotel in Plovdiv. It is expected that the President of the European Chess Union and Bulgarian Chess Federation Mr. Silvio Danailov will attend the opening ceremony and officially open the competition. The Bulgarian city Plovdiv will be the host of the Championship from July 5 (day of arrival) until July 18 (day of departure) 2014. The tournament venue will be the Hall Plovdiv in the Novotel Plovdiv hotel.

117 players from 26 federations have been registered so far, among whom are 101 international title holders: 8 GMs, 29 WGMs, 26 IMs, 17 WIMs etc. The first seed is GM Nana Dzagnidze from Georgia (2541). The highest rated players are: IM Mariya Muzychuk 2521 (UKR), WGM Natalija Pogonina 2508 (RUS), GM Valentina Gunina 2501 (RUS), WGM Olga Girya 2493 (RUS), GM Hoang Thanh Trang 2490 (HUN), GM Antoaneta Stefanova 2488 (BUL), Tatiana Kosintseva 2476 (RUS), Lela Javakhishvili 2474 (GEO), Monika Socko 2462 (POL) etc.

The tournament will be organized in 11-round Swiss system in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules and FIDE Laws of Chess. The rate of play will be 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. The prize fund is 60 000 EUR. This tournament is a qualification event for the next World Cup. The official website of the Championship is http://www.eiwcc2014.eu/ Find more news about the European Chess Union: on our website or Facebook account