The 1st European Cities & Towns Chess Championship was played on Sunday, January 29th with participation of 50 teams from 30 European cities.
The event was from hybrid cities & towns venues, through Tornelo online platform and consisted of three categories: Open/Seniors, Women’s, and Youth U12. Each section featured 9 rounds played in swiss system, with the time control of 10 minutes + 3 seconds increment after each move. The first pilot event supported by the FIDE Development fund.
Team Prague (Czech Republic) emerged as the sole Winner of the Open/Seniors section scoring 17 match points. Thessaloniki (Greece) came second with 15 match points, while Kallithea Athens (Greece) claimed bronze with 14 match points.
Team Prague – European Cities & Towns Chess Champions Open section; composition of the team:
Board 1 – GM Nguyen Thai Dai Van (CZE, 2656)
Board 2 – GM Rodshtein Maxim (ISR, 2616)
Board 3 – GM Movsesian Sergei (ARM, 2615)
Board 4 – FM Nemec Jachym (CZE, 2361)
The Open and Seniors sections were merged in one, and the best-ranked city/town was crowned as European Cities & Towns Senior Chess Champions. Prague Senior (Czech Republic) team scored 9 match points and 19 board points to emerge as the best-ranked Senior team. Istanbul Senior (Turkey) had the same score of 9 match points but 15 board points and claimed silver, while Monte-Carlo (Monaco) won bronze scoring 7 match points.
Team Prague Senior – European Cities & Towns Chess Champions Seniors section; composition of the team:
Board 1 – GM Jansa Vlastimil (CZE, 2398)
Board 2 – FM Sorm Daniel (CZE, 2302)
Board 3 – IM Trickov Vasil (CZE, 2329)
Board 4 – IM Pribyl Josef (CZE, 2217)
Ljubljana Women’s team (Slovenia) emerged as the Winner of the European Cities & Towns Women’s Championship with the score of 16 match points. Thessaloniki (Greece) won silver with 14 match points, and London (England) clinched bronze with 13 match points.
Team Ljubljana Women – European Cities & Towns Women’s Chess Champions; composition of the team:
Board 1 – IM Unuk Laura (SLO, 2296)
Board 2 – WIM Urh Zala (SLO, 2282)
Board 3 – WIM Vidic Teja (SLO, 2138)
Board 4 – WFM Rozman Monika (SLO, 2125)
Team Istanbul (Turkey) won the European Cities & Towns Youth U12 Chess Championship with the perfect score of 18 match points. Three teams tied for silver scoring 12 match points, each: Lviv Chess Federation (Ukraine), Iasi Region (Romania) and CSM Galati (Romania) and the board points of teams determined the medalists. Lviv Chess Federation won silver with 22.5 board points, Iasi Region claimed bronze with 20.5 board points and CSM Galati came fourth with 20 board points.
Team Istanbul Youth – European Cities & Towns Youth U12 Chess Champions; composition of the team:
Board 1 – Kuru Atilla (TUR, 2054)
Board 2 – Uzdemir Ali Poyraz (TUR, 1638)
Board 3 – Akkara Omer (TUR, 1443)
Board 4 – Sahin Zeynep Duru (TUR, 1385)
The event was broadcasted through 4 different channels: European Chess TV – Youtube, European Chess Union – Twitch channel, Chess.com TV Channel, European Chess TV – Twitch channel, with commentaries by WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and GM Arturs Neiksans. According to the total statistics, the number of individual viewers exceeded 100.000, the same as the last day of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament.
European Cities & Towns Chess Championship – Arbiters team led by Chief Arbiter IA Tania Karali.
