The European championships is always a strong event since Europe has a huge number of strong GMs. Apart from the East European giants, chess Eurozone includes Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Israel.
There’s plenty of motivation since it’s a qualifier for the title cycle. The prize fund is respectable at over Euro 1,20,000. The top contenders in this year’s edition in Rijeka, Croatia include Almasi, Bacrot, Movsesian, Navara, Vallejo, Motylev, Adams, Tomashevsky, Alekseev, Baadur, Naiditsch, Akopian, Volokitin, Bologan and Caruana. There are over 400 players in the open section and another 150-odd in the Women’s section.
The 11-round Swiss opened with a bang in terms of unionised action, Over 100 participants submitted a petition before round 1, requesting the “zero tolerance rule” be scrapped. In 2008, FIDE suggested zero tolerance with players being defaulted if they are not present when the clock starts ticking.
Since introduction at the Dresden Olympiad, many people have been forfeited for being seconds late. The organiser of any given event has the discretion to ease the grace period. The Euro petition asks that the time limit for default be increased to a reasonable 30 minutes. At the given control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, 30 minutes for the rest of the game, and an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one, a 30 minute time deficit would be crippling anyhow.
After six rounds, Zahar Efimenko and Baadur Jobava lead with 5.5 while Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexander Riazantsev, Rauf Mamedov, Bojan Vuckovic, and Zoltan Almasi follow with 5. Play has been very decisive so far. But there are 22 World Cup places at stake. So, we may see caution and agreed draws in the final stages as players try to lock in qualification. One problem with preparation for Swisses is that the compulsion to generate a lot of wins often leads to massive risk taking with black. This can lead to unhappy accidents when the defence in question is less than objectively sound.
The diagram,. WHITE TO PLAY, (Efimenko Vs Nisipeanu, Euro 2010) is a case in point. Black has “sharpened” play by adopting a bad version of the Alekhine Defence. Having build a huge central advantage White goes into assault mode with 16.g4 Nhf6 17.Bf4 Qb6 18.g5 Nh5 19.gxh6 Bf6 20.Ne4 Nxf4 21.Qxf4 Rf8 22.c5 Qxb2 23.Bc4
Black still hasn’t managed to free the queen side and is close to being checkmated. After 23...Kh8 24.Nfg5 Bxg5 25.Nxg5 f6 26.Nf7+ Kh7 27.Rfe1 Re8 28.Ng5+ Kh8 29.Ne6 b5 30.Bb3 a5 31.Nc7 a4 32.Bf7 e5 33.Qg3 (1-0,). The threats include picking up pieces on a8, e8 as well as the crude but difficult to combat capture on g6, followed by mate.