European Individual Chess Championship
The European Individual Chess Championship is a chess tournament organised by the European Chess Union. It was established in 2000 and has since then taken place on a yearly basis. Apart from determining the European champions (absolute and women's), another object of this tournament is to determine a number of players who qualify for the FIDE World Cup and the knockout Women's World Championship.
Mode of play
The tournament is held separately for men and women as a Swiss system tournament, with a varying number of rounds. The only exception was the first Women's Championship tournament in 2000, which was held as a knock-out-tournament. As with all chess competitions, the "men's" section is in fact an open tournament in which female players may participate, but not vice versa. In 2002, Judit Polgár narrowly missed the bronze medal in the men's competition by losing a play-off match against Zurab Azmaiparashvili. In 2011, Polgar won the bronze medal in the men's competition at Aix-les-Bains, France.
Apart from the first edition in 2000, where in case of a tie the Buchholz-Rating was used as a tie-breaker, rapid-play play-off matches were used to determine the medal winners as well as the world championship qualifiers.
Controversy
There have been a number of controversies associated with the tournament:
- At most venues, participants and accompanying persons were obliged to accommodate at the "official hotel", appointed by the local organizers. The room rates, however, would be significantly higher than for other hotel guests.[1][2] This in fact triggered the founding of the ACP. Also the standard of the hotels as well as of the food has been a focus of complaints by players and journalists.
- As the European Championships are part of the FIDE World Championship cycle, starting with the 2001 edition, the new, faster FIDE time control was used. This led to many complaints by the participants about increased stress, incessant time trouble and a steep deterioration of the quality of the games.[3][4]
- A more indirect problem is the uncertainty whether a player's qualification for the World Championship will be of any value at all due to the inconsistent staging of the World Championship Tournaments since the change of the tournament format in 1999. For example, the 2002 European Championships provided five qualifying spots for the 2003 World Championship which in fact never took place.
Results (open)
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Results (women)
See also
References
- Krasenkow, Michal, "Youth on top in Batumi", New in Chess Magazine, 2002 (6), pp. 69–79, OCLC 20735159
- Geuzendam, Ten; Jan, Dirk, ""Azmai" fourth European Champion", New in Chess Magazine, 2003 (5), pp. 26–45, OCLC 20735159
- Tischbierek, Raj, "Himmelhoch jauchzend, zu Tode betrübt", Schach, 2001 (7), pp. 4–31, ISSN 0048-9328
- Van Wely, Loek, "Sometimes the King Wore no Clothes", New in Chess Magazine, 2001 (5), pp. 52–57, OCLC 20735159
External links
For complete tables / results, refer to The Week in Chess website:
- 2000: Men´s results (1–60 places only) Women´s results Women´s final match
- 2000: Men´s complete results Russchess.com
- 2001: Men´s results Women´s results
- 2002: Men´s results Women´s results
- 2003: Men´s and Women´s results
- 2004: Men´s results Women´s results
- 2005: Men´s results Women´s results
- 2006: Men´s and Women´s results
- 2007: Men's results
- 2008: Men´s and Women´s results