The final knockout round of the European Hybrid Qualification Chess Tournament took place from 28-29 May.
The games were played on Tornelo Online platform with 72 players fighting for 36 FIDE World Cup spots.
21 players qualified after two games-match classical time control, while 15 matches proceeded to tiebreak games.
After the tiebreaker rapid mini matches and three Armageddon games, the following players earned tickets to the 2021 Sochi FIDE World Cup:
- Artemiev Vladislav (RUS, 2709)
- Tomashevsky Evgeny (RUS, 2706)
- Esipenko Andrey (RUS, 2701)
- Predke Alexandr (RUS, 2690)
- Matlakov Maxim (RUS, 2688)
- Fedoseev Vladimir (RUS, 2687)
- David Anton Guijarro (ESP, 2673)
- Cheparinov Ivan (BUL, 2667)
- Sjugirov Sanan (RUS, 2663)
- Lupulescu Constantin (ROU, 2656)
- Oparin Grigoriy (RUS, 2652)
- Laznicka Viktor (CZE, 2647)
- Motylev Alexander (RUS, 2641)
- Martirosyan Haik (ARM, 2637)
- Yilmaz Mustafa (TUR, 2630)
- Bogdan Deac Daniel (ROU, 2627)
- Ponkratov Pavel (RUS, 2624)
- Shant Sargsyan (ARM, 2618)
- Alekseev Evgeny (RUS, 2617)
- Svane Rasmus (GER, 2615)
- Zvjaginsev Vadim (RUS, 2614)
- Braun Arik (GER, 2609)
- Indjic Aleksandar (SRB, 2607)
- Ivanisevic Ivan (SRB, 2606)
- Jobava Baadur (GEO, 2603)
- Krasenkow Michal (POL, 2597)
- Brkic Ante (CRO, 2592)
- Hovhannes Gabuzyan (ARM, 2590)
- Thai Dai Van Nguyen (CZE, 2577)
- Emre Can (TUR, 2569)
- Paichadze Luka (GEO, 2565)
- Martinovic Sasa (CRO, 2548)
- Savchenko Boris (RUS, 2538)
- Afanasiev Nikita (RUS, 2522)
- Kozak Adam (HUN, 2518)
- Teclaf Pawel (POL, 2502)
It is notable that Russian players dominated the field as 14 of them have qualified for the FIDE World Cup taking place in their country. Armenian Chess Federation got 3 qualifiers, while Turkey, Croatia, Serbia, Czech Republic, Germany, Georgia, Poland and Romania got 2 qualifiers, each. Finally, Bulgaria, Spain and Hungary got 1 qualifier, each.
All games at the event were broadcast live, along with commentary by WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and GM Marcin Tazbir . ECU live studio also hosted special guests. In the last round the President of ECU, Mr Zurab Azmaiparashvili, joined the live broadcast and spoke about the qualifying tournaments and the upcoming European over the board tournaments.
The Prize-Tiebreaker of the European Hybrid Qualification Tournament is played today as a 9 rounds Swiss tournament deciding the distribution of 32.000 EUR prize pool.
All the games will be live broadcasted through the ECU Twitch channel.