In September, after the saga of the Covid-interruption, the 2019-2020 season was completed. The outstanding rounds 10 and 11 were played, as had been controversially decided by the federation, but forfeits (either by team or on individual boards) were not penalised. This of course led to some distortion of final standings, but in many cases the matches were also not relevant anymore for promotion/relegation. In Round 10, Europchess did not play any match, because...
On Friday 4 June 2021, the Polish No. 1 player, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, visited Europchess “online”. Our high-level guest was first welcomed by Arkadiusz Langer, a Cabinet member of the Polish Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski. Langer not only gave an account of Duda’s impressive chess career, but also summarized in a succinct manner the significance of Poland as a great chess nation. Europchess President Johannes Bertram added that the club is inviting Grandmasters...
The French Chess Federation marks this year its 100th anniversary. Even in our current unusual situation, this is an event not to be missed, and on this occasion a special online event on chess history was organised, which grouped an impressive number of chess historians of a significant number of countries, including our vice-president Frank Hoffmeister. A number of our club members participated also in the event, which was greeted by the FIDE President...
From 5 to 8 March, the famous open of Cappelle-la-Grande took place. The organisers had optimistically announced a physical tournament a while ago, but given the sanitary situation this was of course still not possible. But the organisers had a nice online format in reserve for the 37th edition of the tournament: on four consecutive days, four tournaments – bullet, rapid, blitz and women – were organised. They were excellently organised on the playing...
Europchess is not giving up its activities in these pandemic times. Despite the compulsory suspension of over-the-board chess, online blitz tournaments are organised twice a week, and training activities continue via online platforms. Europchess started the year with a training session on chess endings by FM Georgi Tomov, which took place in January. Last week, our Vice-President (and recognised chess historian) Frank Hoffmeister presented some nice games taken from the book that he has...
Brussels Chess Club was the first club in the capital to come out of confinement in August, to resume playing over-the-board chess. Under the necessary special hygienic conditions, the traditional “Brussels Express” rapid tournament was held on four evenings, with a total of 17 rounds. Five Europchess players participated. Martin Müller was the clear favourite by rating and was able to fulfil expectations, winning the tournament with a good score of 14.5/17, 2.5 points...