Live from Gothenburg: it's the European Team Championships

Fifteenth European Chess Team Championship

Goteborg, July 29 – August 8, 2005

The 15th European Chess Team Championship is being played, July 29 to August 8, 2005, in Gothenburg, Sweden. history of the country. The venue is the Svenska Mässan Exhibition Center, which has a 5,000 square meter playing hall, with an adjacent leisure area and analysis room. There is even a big Dinosaur exhibition in the same building.

Additional excitement: players can visit the Dinosaurium between rounds

The town of Gothenburg is spelled "Göteborg" in Swedish and pronounced 'yöteborg', the 'ö' rhyming with "eight", spoken with puckered lips. The city, the second largest in Sweden, lies on the western coast of Sweden and has half a million residents.

This is the biggest chess event in Swedish history. 63 teams from 37 European countries have registered, 38 for the men's section and 25 for the women's. Top seeds are Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2752), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2738), Etienne Bacrot (France, 2729), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2724) and Vladimir Akopian (Armenia 2705). We are told that Judit Polgar will be playing for the Hungarian Men's team. She would be the highest rated player in the championship.

The top teams, with average ratings, are the following:

European Women's Chess Team Championship

The top players here, not counting for the moment the Russian and Ukraine teams, are Maia Chiburdanidze (Georgia, 2509), Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria, 2501), Pia Cramling, Sweden, 2494), Monika Socko (Poland, 2465), Nino Khurtsidze (Georgia, 2449), Lilit Mkrtchian (Armenia, 2447), Iweta Radziewicz (Poland, 2447), Nana Dzagnidze (Georgia, 2438), Marie Sebag (France, 2438), Almira Skripchenko (France, 2437), Yelena Dembo (Greece, 2428), Elisabeth Paehtz (Germany, 2421), Maia Lomineishvili (Georgia, 2420), Ketino Kachiani-Gersinska (Germany, 2418), Corina-Isabela Peptan (Romania, 2411), Alisa Maric (Serbia/Montenegro, 2415), Zhaoqin Peng (Holland, 2405), Jolanta Zawadzka (Poland, 2402), Cristina-Adela Foisor (Romania, 2402), Joanna Dworakowska (Poland, 2401).

The favourites must be the Russian team, with five players all rated above 2400: Aleksandra Kosteniuk (2516), Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (2471), Tatiana Kosintseva (2477), Nadezhda Kosintseva (2490) and Alisa Galliamova (2453). The average rating in this team is 2481. They are followed by the Ukrainian team with Natalia Zhukova (2478), Kateryna Lahno (2498), Tatjana Vasilevich (2392), Inna Gaponenko (2439), Anna Ushenina (2439). The Elo average is 2449.

Tournament schedule

Links and live coverage

• Official web site
  The organisers have promised to broadcast between 24 and 32 games live each day. This means that between 6 and 8 whole matches will be covered.

• Radio ChessBase
  IM Jacob Aagaard will provide live interviews and analysis of the games, starting each evening at 20:30h CEST. You can follow live games and listen to the commentary in the broadcast room of the Playchess.com server.

  
  Our Radio ChessBase commentators: IMs Jacob Aagaard and John Shaw