The 17th European Individual Chess Championship 2016 kicked off yesterday at Pashtriku Hotel in Gjakova/Kosovo*.
It was a good day for the favorites, and the interesting fact is that only three games were not decisive, among 120 pairings.
GM Yuriy Kryvoruchko (UKR 2691) drew his game with IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson (ISL 2410) who can be more than happy for snatching half a point from the 9th seed.
GMs Gabriel Sargissian (ARM 2689) and David Howell (ENG 2671) were the other two players to draw their games with FM Gabriel Gaehwiler (SUI 2352) and Nderim Saraci (KOS 2275) respectively.
Despite the 11 round format, the tough matches are already coming in the 2nd round. Some of the top pairings of the round two are: Zbynek Hracek vs David Navara, Radoslaw Wojtaszek vs Ante Saric, Vitaly Kunin vs Nikita Vitiugov, Ruslan Ponomariov vs Aleksej Aleksandrov, Peter Prohaszka vs Francisco Vallejo, Markus Ragger vs Anton Demchenko, Zdenko Kozul vs Maxim Matlakov, etc.
Live broadcast of the games are now available on the ECU website, in the section LIVE.
*According to the ECU Statues any mention of Kosovo followed with an asterisk with reference to UN Resolution 1244, without prejudice of status
