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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
6 November 2024
The European individual Senior Championships concluded last week at Lignano Sabbiadoro in northern Italy.
In the 65+, overnight leaders GM Sturua of Georgia took a quick draw and this proved sufficient to win outright after his closest challengers also drew.
Another Georgian grandmaster, GM Mikheil Kekelidze, won the 50+ Open after a three-way tie between him, IM Edwin van Haastert of the Netherlands, and GM Martin Mrva of Slovakia.
A fuller report on the final round, played ion Saturday 2nd November, can be seen below.
The 50+ Women's Championship (a 10-player round-robin tournament) also ended in a tie on the huge score of 8/9. French IM Silvia Alexieva won the title on a very marginal tiebreak from WGM Tatiana Grabuzova of Spain. They were a full two points ahead of bronze medallist WGM Marina Makropoulou of Greece.
You can also see a final report with photographs on the European Chess Union website.
24 games from the various sections were broadcast each day on Lichess. Thee organisers did not use chess-results.com for the pairings so here are the links we have discovered on the Vesus platform:
The homepage for the tournament.
The 50+ Open section (round 9 pairings, from which you can migrate to the standings and earlier rounds).
The 65+ Open: This was a larger tournament with 98 competitors including about six women competing for separate honours.
Here is a summary of events in round 8 (of 9) of the Open sections. As usual we take the 65+ section first as it is much stronger in depth than the 50+.
In the last round of the 65+ Championship, rhe top three boards were drawn but the games were of very different character. On top board, IM Dr Evgueni Chevelevitch (Germany) made no atempt to beat Sturua but played the Scotch Four Knights and agreed a draw after nine moves. Sturua was undoubtedly confident that any tie-break would favour him but none was needed.
On second board,French IM Louis Roos (on 6 points) v played Slovak GM Lubomir Ftacnik (6.5) who could catch Sturua if he won. The computer surprisingly shows that Black's 16th move was blunder that should have lost the queen for rook and piece but White didn't see it and the game proceeded on an even keel until a draw resulted in 59 moves.
Five players finished in a tie on 6.5 points, of whom German GM Rainer Knaak took the bronze medal on tie-break. He drew his last round game with Black after 62 moves against English FM Terry Chapman, who had an excellent tournament and was placed fourth. Roos placed fifth.
Sixth was GM John Nunn who, on board 4, finally won a game after a long run of draws, but it was too late to get amongst the medals. So he remained unbeaten but this is the first time he has finished outside the medals in a senior tournament. Chevelevitch, who only played on a high board at the end, placed seventh.
Other final totals of players from the UK and Ireland were: IM Craig Pritchett (Scotland) 5.5; Raj Bhopal (Scotland) 5; Peter Cafolla (Ireland) and Brian Hewson (England) 4.5; Alan Gregg (England) 4; Ian Aird (Scotland) 3.5; Hassan Erdogan (England) 3.
The Women's 65+ title was won by WIM Brigitte Burchardt (Germany) who drew her last game and finished on 5.5 points. She had been among the leaders in the early rounds so this was well deserved.
Silver went to veteran GM Nona Gaprindashvili on 4.5 points. She lost in the last round to FM Georg Haubt (Germany) whom we know of old to be a tough competitor. The women's bronze medal went to WFM Mira Kierzek of Germany on 3.5 points although she lost to Cafolla in the last round. She had a superior tiebreak to WIM Martine Dubois.
In the "Junior Seniors", the overnight leaders GM Mikheil Kekelidze of Georgia and IM Edwin van Haastert (Netherlands) drew their game in only 8 moves to finish on 7 points. Van Haastert, who was top seed initially, had lost in the first round and this setback was always likely to count against him eventually. He would have needed to win with Black but apparently decided that risking losing the prize money and medal was not worth it.
On board 2, GM Martin Mrva of Slovakia beat Scottish GM Paul Motwani so three players finished on 7 points. Mrva was placed third on tie-break so took bronze.
The board three game between IM Josep Anton Lacasa Diaz (Spain) and FM Konstantinos Nikolaidis (Greece) was drawn. This meant that Lacasa Diaz finished fourth alone on 6.5 points while seven players including Motwani and English FM Stephen Dishman ended on 6 points.
Other scores of British and Irish players were: IM Stephen Mannion (Scotland) 5.5; Philip J. Crocker (England) 5; FM Mike Waddington (England) 4.5; Anthony Fox (Ireland) 4, WFM Petra Fink-Nunn 3.5, and Gabriel Mirza (Ireland) 3.
Back to our main Seniors news page.