After 13 played games at the World Chess Championship Match 2023 between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, the result is tied 6.5-6.5. New World Chess Champion will be determined in the last classical game of the match or in the playoffs.

Ian Nepomniachtchi had a full-point lead before the last two-game portions. Ding Liren once again bounced back and equalized the score after winning the game 12 with white pieces. It was a roller-coaster chess game with repeated chances on both sides. Nepomniachtchi was the last one to make the mistake, and it was a bad blunder in the 34th move which Ding Liren used to score a win. Nepo resigned only a few moves later.

The 13th game took place yesterday with Nepo having white pieces. It was Ding Liren who dictated the pace of the game, leaving the opening with a clear advantage. However, the Chinese grandmaster did not manage to keep the better position, and Nepomniachtchi turned the tables starting to play for a win. White was pressing, but neither side gave way. Just after three hours of play and 39 moves, the game ended in a draw.

The last classical game of the match will be played tomorrow as the players have a free day today. If the game finishes in a draw, the World Chess Champion 2023 will be determined in the playoffs. The playoffs will start with a 4-game rapid match (time control 25 minutes + 10 seconds increment). If the result is tied, two blitz games with time control 5 minutes + 3 seconds increment will be played. If the result is tied, a single game with time control 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment will follow. If this game finishes in a draw, the players will play another game with the same time control, and so on until one game finishes with a decisive result.

Official website
Photos by: Stev Bonhage and Anna Shtourman

The second quarterly meeting of the ECU Board was held in Rhodes, Greece, on April 21 and 22. The Municipality of Rhodes hosted the event under excellent conditions. ECU expresses its thanks and appreciation to the Mayor of Rhodes, Mr. Andonis Cambourakis. The opening of the meeting was attended by the FIDE and Greek Chess Federation Vice President Mr. Georgios Makropoulos

Main information and Decisions:

1. The ECU Board has decided to form a group to to develop a proposal to update the FIDE Transfer Rules for players in coordination with the respective FIDE Task force. The ECU Board is considering the following:
   a. strengthening the national chess federations,
   b. motivating them to develop programs for talented players at the national level,
   c. the harmonisation of the FIDE rules with the transfer rules of the major International Sports federations.
2. The ECU Board discussed the next qualification cycle for the World Championship Cycle 2024-2025 and will send its proposals to FIDE.
3. ECU Board has decided to further explain and strictly apply the ECU Fair Play Policy through special webinars and guidelines for European Chess Championships for technical officials and players. ECU Fair Play regulations: https://www.european-games.org/side-events/chess/
4. Parallel to the Board meeting the ECU Media Commission made its first meeting in person, presenting new marketing initiatives and a modern approach to the ECU media strategy.
5. ECU notes the proposals of ECU Trainers Commission and the new developments and sunergies. Proposals to be included in the ECU tournament rules will be forwarded to ECU General Assembly.

European Championships and events

1. The European Pairs Chess Championship will be launched in Krakow on 19^th of June, as an official side event of the European Games Krakow-Malopolska 2023. The European Games is the major event of the European Olympic Committees. https://www.european-games.org/side-events/chess/
2. European Chess Union and the ASEAN Chess Confederation are co-hosting a chess symposium for Trainers, Arbiters and Organizers on June 19-24 in Bangkok, Thailand.
3. The option for The European Women Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship 2023 is awarded to the Monaco Chess Federation to be held on 8-10 December 2023. Monaco shall confirm the event within May.
4. The European Union Youth Chess Championship 2023 will take place in August in Czech Republic, as an ECU affiliated event.
5. The European Amateur Chess Championship 2023 in Sardinia, Italy was cancelled. Turkish Chess federation express its interest to organize it. ECU will have a final information till end of May. The dates and venue for the European Amateur Championship 2023 will be announced as soon as possible.
6. ECU Board decided to reschedule the venue and dates of European Youth Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship 2023.  The tournament was initially scheduled for June 2023 in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The dates and new venue will be announced as soon as possible in cooperation with a National Chess federation.

   ECU Board additional notes that have lost any official communication with the Bosnia & Herzegovina Chess Federation and FIDE will be addressed whether there is a legitimate chess administration in the country has been elected by a recent (last years) General Assembly.

Bids have been received for the year 2025-2026

The following European Chess Championships have sole
bidders and are awarded by the ECU Board conditionally that an inspection will
be made where needed to confirm the eligibility of the venue as also that all
main financial conditions are met.

1. The European Amateur Chess Championship 2025 is awarded to Malta.
2. The European Youth Rapid Blitz Chess Championship 2025 is awarded to Thessaloniki, Greece.
3. The European Teams Chess Championship 2025 is awarded to Batumi, Georgia.
4. The European Women’s Individual Chess Championship 2026 is awarded to Batumi, Georgia.
5. The European Individual Chess Championship 2025 and the European Club Cup 2026 are awarded to Budva, Montenegro as a combined bid.
6. The European Women Individual Chess Championship 2025 and the European Youth Chess Championship 2027 are awarded to Rhodes, Greece as a combined bid.
7. All the valid bids received by the deadline of 14^th of April and the events remain still open for proposals are published on the ECU Website: https://www.europechess.org/bids-2025/

 Sincerely,
 Theodoros Tsorbatzoglou
 ECU Secretary General

The ASEAN Chess Confederation and the European Chess Union announce the chess symposium which will include separate workshops for trainers, arbiters and organisers. The Symposium will take place from 19-24 June in Bangkok, Thailand.

The Symposium will start with the Trainers workshop which will be held from 19-21 June with GM Artur Yusupov as the lecturer. The workshop will cover the following topics:
> How to indetify talent
> Ways to improve a young player
> Various forms of training
> Preparing for an important tournament

The Arbiters workshop with Takis Nikolopoulos, Ignatius Leong and Bong Bunawan will take place from 21-24 June, as well as the Organisers workshop with Zurab Azmaiparshvili, Ignatius Leong and Takis Nikolopoulos as the main speakers.

The complete program of the symposium can be seen below.

France’s teams won gold medals in both the open and women’s sections at Mitropa Chess Cup 2023, organised by the Croatian Chess Federation in Mali Lošinj.

The closing ceremony featured the presence of some honourable guests: the Mayor of Mali Lošinj, Mrs Anna Kučić, and the President of the European Chess Union, Mr Zurab Azmaiparashvili. The President of Mitropa Chess Association, Mr Marco Biagioli, homaged them with a small present from MCA. Mitropa Cup now waits for its participants in 2024 in Germany.

Mr Biagioli also congratulated the Tournament Director Mr Alojzije Janković, ECU Vice President and Croatian Chess Federation Secretary General, for the perfect organization.

During the tournament, the Mitropa Chess Association Board held a meeting in Mali Lošinj, where many new projects were discussed and will be announced in the following weeks.

All results and standing can be found in Chess-Results: Open section and Women’s section and in the official website: https://mitropa.chess.at/.

Text: Aleksandra Dimitrijević
Photos: Aleksandra Dimitrijević and Croatian Chess Federation

After the eighth round of the event, Italy and France teams in the Open section are sharing the first place, and France in the Women’s Section is solo leading in the Mitropa Cup 2023.

Yesterday’s eighth round was opened by the ceremonial first move made in the match France – Germany in the Open section by the President of the Mitropa Chess Association, Mr Marco Biagioli.

The Mitropa Chess Cup 2023 is organised at a high level. The tournament is going smoothly, with a lot of fights on the chess boards and without any problems in the event. The Croatian Chess Federation organise the event in the cute island town Mali Lošinj. Mr Nenad Dorić leads the experienced arbiters team.

Besides chess, players can enjoy basketball, hiking, gym, and the beautiful seaside in their free time.

Today, the last and decisive round will be attended and started by the special guest, the President of the European Chess Union, Mr Zurab Azmaiparashvili. The closing Ceremony will be tomorrow, after the last round, at 3:30 pm CEST.

More information and live games can be found at the official website: https://mitropa.chess.at/

Text by: Aleksandra Dimitrijevic
Photos by: Aleksandra Dimitrijevic and Croatian Chess Federation

ECU E-Magazine March 2023 is out!

In this edition of the ECU E-Magazine you may read about:

• FIDE World Chess Championship Match 2023
• European Individual Chess Championship 2023
• European Women’s Chess Championship 2023
• European Youth Team Chess Championship 2023 – Official invitation
• European Open and Women’s Chess Club Cup 2023 – Official invitation
• Mitropa Cup 2023 in Mali Losinj, Croatia
• Reykjavik Chess Open 2023
• UK vs Ukraine solidarity match
• ECU Commissions activities
• Arbiters Corner
• Fun Zone

The March 2023 edition of the ECU Magazine can be read online with interactive links and videos on the following link, or it can be downloaded in PDF format down below.

ECU E-Magazine March 2023 – PDF Download

The 2023 edition of the Mitropa Cup starts this Monday in Mali Losinj, Croatia. The event will be played from 10th – 20th April at Hotel Aurora in the well-known tourist destination in Croatia.

The event is played in Open and Women’s sections separately, with participation of 10 federations: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. The Championships are played in 9 rounds, round-robin system, with time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment for each move from move one.

Each team is composed of 4 players plus one reserve player (for open section), 4 women players plus one reserve woman player (for women section), one of them acts as a team captain.

The best-rated players who will represent their federations at the tournament are: GM Jergus Pechac (SVK, 2610), GM Yannick Gozzoli (FRA, 2585), GM Viktor Erdos (HUN, 2583), GM Maxime Lagarde (FRA, 2579) and GM Adam Kozak (HUN, 2568), as well as IM Anastasia Savina (FRA, 2343), IM Marina Brunello (ITA, 2340), IM Laura Unuk (SLO, 2310), WIM Zala Urh (SLO, 2278), and WIM Natacha Benmesbah (FRA, 2256).

Starting list of teams and players can be found here.

Live broadcast of the games can be followed through the following link.

Official website of the event

Tournament schedule:

About the Mitropa Cup:

The Mitropa Cup is the annual team chess tournament for national teams from Central Europe. The traditional team event this year brings together 10 nations competing against each other in an Open and a Women section on 4 boards each. Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland. The event commenced in 1976 in Innsbruck.

The 2023 FIDE World Chess Championship match will take place from 7th of April to 1st May in Astana, Kazakhstan. The match will be played in 14 games between Ian Nepomniachtchi – the Winner of the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2022 and Ding Liren – the runner-up of the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2022 since Magnus Carlsen decided not to defend his title.

The prize fund of the match is 2 million euros, and the first player who reaches 7.5 points will win the World Chess Champion crown.

The Opening ceremony of the event will take place tomorrow evening at 19:30 (local time) and the first round starts on Sunday, 9th of April, at 15:00 (local time).

Tournament schedule:

Time control of the match is 120 minutes for 40 moves, plus 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, and 15 minutes till the end of the game. Starting from move 61, players will have 30-second increment for each move until the end of the game.

If the match finishes in the tied result after 14 games, a playoff will determine the winner. Playoffs will consist of four 25-minute games with a 10-second increment from move one. If the result is still tied, two blitz games will be played with time control of 5 minutes + 3 seconds. If the winner is not determined after blitz, a single 3+2 games will be played until one player wins.

Live broadcast of the games can be followed through the official website of the event with commentaries by Viswanathan Anand, Daniil Dubov and Irina Krush.

The match will be held at the elegant St. Regis Astana hotel, which officially opened its doors in September 2017. Located in the heart of Astana, onto the left bank of the Esil River and near its Central Park, St Regis was designed by British architects WATG and features an award-winning design by Wimberly Interiors. It combines modern with neo-classical elements, defining the modern-day interpretation of the St. Regis legacy that began in New York more than a century ago.

Official website of the event

The 37th edition of the Reykjavik Open took place from March 29 to April 4 in Harpa Conference Center, Iceland.

GM Nils Grandelius (SWE, 2658) emerged as the Winner of the event with the score of 7.5 points. Grandelius scored a victory in the last round against IM Quentin Loiseau (FRA, 2449) to be half a point ahead of seven players who tied for second place scoring 7 points, each.

According to tiebreak criteria GM Mustafa Yilmaz (TUR, 2629) came second, GM Abhijeet Gupta (IND, 2620) finished in the third place, GM Maxime Lagarde (FRA, 2581) was fourth, GM Gabor Papp (HUN, 2544) was fifth, GM Matthieu Cornette (FRA, 2563) came sixth, GM Tamas Banusz (HUN, 2616) was seventh and GM Leon Livaic (CRO, 2569) finished the event in the eight place.

Final standings & results can be found here.

The 37th edition of the Reykjavik Open broke the participation record with more than 400 players from 46 federations. The total prize fund of the event was 16.250 EUR, with 5.000 EUR reserved for the tournament Winner.

Official website

Photos from: Reykjavik Open Facebook page & Hallfríður Sigurðardóttir

The 38th edition of the European Chess Club Cup and the 27th European Club Cup for Women will be held in Durres, Albania, from September 30th to October 8th 2023.

The events will be played in 7 rounds, swiss system, with time control of 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 Open teams shall be composed of six players plus two reserves all of whom must be members of the club and were entitled to play for the club in the national team championship of the federation, which was organized within one year before the start of the current European Club Cup. The women teams shall be composed of four players plus one reserve player. There is no restriction on the composition and all female player’s license fees are waived for the year 2023.

Each European federation is allowed to take part in this competition. According to the regulations, participation is open to:

» Five (5) clubs per federation in which a national team championship is organized or four (4) clubs per federation in which no national team championship is organized. There is no restriction how the clubs will be selected by the National Federations.
» Any additional request for participation should be examined by the ECU Board.
» In the Women competition all the club members of ECU Federations are allowed to participate.
» Clubs shall be registered through the National Chess Federations or direct if there is no objection from the National Chess Federation.

The playing venue of the tournament will be the official hotel of the Championships Grand Blue Fafa Resort/5-star (*****).

Every federation that intends to participate, with one or more clubs, must inform the Organizing Committee before August 1st 2023 of its acceptance of the invitation, specifying the exact number of the clubs participating. A copy should be sent to the ECU Tournament Director Mr. Petr Pisk petr.pisk@centrum.cz. Afterwards, entry forms must be completed and sent to the tournament e-mail-account office@clubcup2023.com and Tournament Manager Mrs. Majlinda Pilinci, e-mail: mpilinci@clubcup2023.com no later than August 15th 2023. The basic team composition shall be submitted with the entry form.

The total prize fund of the event is 45.000 EUR with 29.000 EUR reserved for the Open competition and 15.000 EUR reserved for the Women’s tournament. In addition to team regular prizes and prizes for best individual players per boards, two individual prizes (1 in Open and 1 in Women) of 500 EUR, will be given to the players with the best performance from a “Balkan Chess Federation” member federation club.

Contact information:

Organizer: Mrs. Majlinda Pilinci (IO)
Mob.: +355 692589298
Website: www.clubcup2023.com
Contact: office@clubcup2023.com , mpilinci@clubcup2023.com
ECU Tournament Director: Mr. Petr Pisk petr.pisk@centrum.cz

Official invitation for the European Open & Women’s Club Cup 2023 can be found here.