Eurochess 2024 in Athens from 11 - 14 April

After last year's Euro Chess Tournament in Amsterdam in the Netherlands in late summer 2023, the organisers of the  Bank of Greece Employees Union Sports and Culture Club invited players to this year's Euro Chess Tournament for the long weekend from 11 to 14 April in Athens in early 2024.

After arriving by plane, the more than 60 participants and accompanying persons were taken by minibus from Athens airport to the 5-star Dolce Athens Attica Riviera hotel complex 20 minutes away by car on 11 April (https://www.dolceatticariviera.com). After checking in, the team captains were given a bag of player badges (name badges to wear) and a small gift for each participant in their room. This was a small trophy with the logo of the 2024 Eurochess event, so no-one should be travelling home empty-handed.

After a short technical meeting, chaired by the Athens-based international chess arbiter Tania Karali, to discuss the rules of the Euro Chess Tournament, the participants enjoyed a sumptuous buffet dinner together at the hotel.

View from the hotel lobby

The beach was not far

On Friday morning, breakfast was first served at an extensive buffet with a view of the sea and a sunny, cloudless, deep blue sky. The Eurochess 2024 tournament started almost punctually at 9 a.m. in a large conference room of the hotel called "ASTERIE". In the morning, 5 rounds of rapid chess were played with the time control 15 + 5 (15 minutes time for the whole game plus 5 seconds increment per move). Incidentally, the reporter wrote down almost all of his own games.

Kibitzing

Gulsana Barpiyeva (right) played for the Deutsche Bundesbank

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After a long lunch break and lunch in the hotel with a sumptuous buffet, three more rounds were played until the tournament ended at around 6.30 pm. IA Tania Karali and FA Maria Petsetidi acted as arbiters. As far as I could tell, there were no disputes or discussions worth mentioning. The pairings went smoothly and were displayed on a large screen via a projector and could be viewed in real time on chess-results (https://chess-results.com/tnr922621.aspx?lan=0&art=1&rd=8). The use of smartphones in silent mode for photography was permitted. Due to the special character of the team ranking (the points of the best 4 players of a country were added together), the respective team rankings (intermediate scores) were announced before the afternoon rounds.

In addition to the hosts from Greece, the following countries and teams were represented: Italy, Spain, the European Investment Bank (Luxembourg), Belgium, Portugal, Hungary, the Netherlands, the European Central Bank, Slovenia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Slovakia.

Team Bundesbank&Co

The team of the European Central Bank

Incidentally, this was the first time that Slovakia had a team at the Euro Chess Tournament. Unfortunately, only three of us from the Bundesbank were represented in the tournament (plus one accompanying person). As in Madrid two years ago, a young girl from Italy, the daughter of a player from the Banca de Italia (Ludovica Parisi), was not allowed to play for Italy (because she is not an employee of the central bank), but she was allowed to play in the tournament and collect points for the German team in the team ranking.

Ludovica Parisi (left)

A (supernumerary) Greek player was included in the EIB team ranking (only two players of EIB took part). The usually strong French players, who are often title contenders and winners of the Eurochess event, were unfortunately absent this time due to scheduling reasons.

The Belgian team, which is actually always very strong, disappointed with a 10th place at the previous Eurochess tournament in Amsterdam in 2023. This time, however, they were very motivated and had obviously prepared well and put together a good strategy. They won the team ranking with 22.5 points.

The team of the National Bank of Belgium

Second place went to the very young and ambitious team from the European Central Bank with 21 points. Last summer, shortly after taking office at the ECB, the young Guilherme Luis Rodrigues from Portugal activated and strengthened the activities of the chess group there, recruited new (stronger) players from the staff and created a good atmosphere and motivation. The team from the Czech Republic came third in the team ranking with 19.5 points, ahead of the players from the Netherlands (defending champions) with 19.5 points and the Spaniards with 19.5 points. The second ranking for the team ranking was determined by the position of the best player from each nation in the individual ranking.

Team ranking:

The individual tournament was somewhat surprisingly won by the Romanian player Radu Liviu Muntean from the ECB with 7 points out of 8 games.

Radu Liviu Muntean (left) during his game against the number one seed. Muntean won the game and the tournament.

As number 11 in the starting list, he already admitted to the reporter during the tournament after round 7 that he probably had a bit of luck regarding the pairings and, after two early draws in rounds 3 and 4, only had to play nominally somewhat stronger opponents in the last two rounds, but won these two games and was therefore the only player to win the tournament with 7 points. Second place went to the Spaniard José Francisco Torres Boch (no. 3 in the starting list) with 6.5 points ahead of Kornel Frindt (no. 2 in the starting list) from Slovakia with 6 points ahead of three other players with the same number of points with 6 out of 8 (including the no. 1 in the starting list from Belgium Dirk Michiels and the veteran and idea generator of the Euro Chess Tournament in the 1990s, Marc Ghysels from Belgium).

TOP 25 of the individual ranking:

(69 participants)

At 7.30 pm, two coaches took all participants and accompanying persons to the fine Seaside restaurant in the Loutsa area (https://seasiderestaurant.gr/), a good 15-minute drive away. There, numerous courses of Greek specialities were served and a great dinner was enjoyed accompanied by live music from a young singer until the coaches returned to the hotel at 11 pm.

After breakfast together on Saturday morning, the entire day was dedicated to sightseeing. The buses left at 10 a.m. after a good hour's bus journey to the historic temple of Poseidon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounion), which is located south of Athens on a hill on a headland and is considered a tourist magnet. In glorious, cloudless April travelling weather (not too hot but very windy), the historic site was extensively visited. This was accompanied by stories and background information from local guides. After numerous photos of the temple and group photos, the buses took us back to the hotel after more than an hour on site. There you could relax, either on the beach, in the sea, in the hotel pool or in your room.

At 5 p.m., the entire travel delegation took a one-hour bus ride to the centre of the Greek capital, Athens. There we first drove past the famous government palace and were then dropped off.

We then had a good 1.5 hours to explore the city centre at our leisure. A Greek player from Athens agreed to guide the teams from Italy, Germany and Luxembourg (EIB) through the alleyways. There, it was noticeable that there were more than a handful of shops selling chess boards and pieces in all variations.

After seeing some of the sights, excavations, a view of the Acropolis and souvenir shops, we went to the agreed meeting point, the "Horologian of Andronikos Kyrrhestes" (Tower of the Winds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_the_Winds), at around 7.30 pm. There was a beautiful view of the Acropolis and good opportunities for group photos.

The tower of the Winds

From there, it was a five-minute walk to the Lyra restaurant (https://lyrarestaurant.gr), a local culinary hotspot, as it turned out later. Once again, numerous courses of Greek and other food specialities were served there. The overall standard was even better than the previous evening. Accompanied by live Greek music from a two-man band, the atmosphere at this gala dinner was exuberant. The award ceremony took place at around 10.30 pm with the presentation of trophies and medals.

The tournament with his cup

The "virtual handover of the baton" also took place when a Hungarian player took the floor and announced that the next Eurochess tournament in Hungary would take place in Budapest from 8 to 11 May 2025. The Czech Republic is being discussed as the organiser for 2026.

Shortly after 11.15 p.m., all the players and accompanying persons set off in the direction of the meeting point to board the buses and return to the hotel.

This year's Eurochess event ended with a joint breakfast at the hotel before the participants were taken to the airport in minibuses or taxis, depending on their departure time. Some of the participants and accompanying persons took a few more days off to recover from chess.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the organisation team of the Bank of Greece Sports and Culture Club led by Eleni Tsagkaropoulou for the fantastic event, the organisation, the excellent choice of hotel and restaurants, the smooth tournament organisation and the varied supporting programme.

Link

Chess-results.com