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:
| Team |
aver. |
Players |
| Russia |
2692 |
Peter Svidler 2738, Alexey Dreev 2698, Alexander Motylev 2675 Evgeny
Bareev 2688, Artyom Timofeev 2661. |
| Israel |
2659 |
Boris Gelfand 2724, Emil Sutovsky 2674, Ilia Smirin 2652, Boris Avrukh
2652, Sergey Erenburg 2595. |
| Armenia |
2653 |
Vladimir Akopian 2705, Levon Aronian 2724, Rafael Vaganian 2614, Smbat
Lputian 2629, Ashot Anastasian 2595. |
| France |
2652 |
Etienne Bacrot 2729 Joel Lautier 2672 Laurent Fressinet 2627 Christian
Bauer 2641 Josif Dorfman 2592 |
| Ukraine |
2647 |
Vassily Ivanchuk 2752, Alexander Moiseenko 2664, Sergey Karjakin 2645,
Pavel Eljanov 2639, Yuri Kuzubov 2535 |
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
| Friday July 29th |
08.00 pm |
Opening Ceremony |
| Saturday July 30th |
03.00 pm |
Round 1 |
| Sunday July 31st |
03.00 pm |
Round 2 |
| Monday August 1st |
03.00 pm |
Round 3 |
| Tuesday August 2nd |
03.00 pm |
Round 4 |
| Wednesday August 3rd |
03.00 pm |
Round 5 |
| Thursday August 4th |
03.00 pm |
Round 6 |
| Friday August 5th |
03.00 pm |
Round 7 |
| Saturday August 6th |
03.00 pm |
Round 8 |
| Sunday August 7th |
03.00 pm |
Round 9 |
| Sunday August 7th |
09.00 pm |
Closing Ceremony |
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
