e-magazine december2020 · 2021. 1. 11. · e-magazine december2020 cercle d'echecs de monte-carlo...

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E-MAGAZINE

DECEMBER 2020

Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo wins European OnlineWomen's Club Cup!

ECU Annual Meeting tookplace on 19.12.2020

ECU General Assembly

Women's Club Cup

GM JONES GAWAIN WINS EUROPEANONLINE BLITZ CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP!

ECU Board & Officers wishing you and yours a safe,

healthy, and prosperous new year!

The Annual ECU General Assembly took place online

on Saturday 19th of December 2020 with the presence of

40 National Federations.

European Blitz #Chess Championship and European

Womne's Club Cup were organised succefully online.

Full reports.

European Chess Union and ECU Arbiters Council

launche the special courses for Chess Arbiters Online

8th London Chess Conference – ChessTech2020 took

place online this year, on 5th and 6th December 2020.

contents

2021, new Year, new Challenges...

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European Chess Union has its seat in Switzerland,Address: Rainweidstrasse 2, CH-6333, HunenbergSee, Switzerland

European Chess Union is an independentassociation founded in 1985 in Graz, Austria;European Chess Union has 54 National FederationMembers; Every year ECU organizes more than 20prestigious events and championships.

[email protected]

ECU Online Blitz Championship

GM Jones Gawain wins EuropeanOnline Blitz Chess Championship2020

Women's Club Cup

Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlowins European Online Women'sClub Cup

Awarding ceremonies

Closing ceremonies of ECUOnline events

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ECU General Assembly

Communique of the ECUAnnual General Assembly

ECU Federation news

100 years anniversaries ofBelgium and Austrian ChessFederation!

ChessTech2020

Report on ChessTech 2020conference

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ECU102 course report

ECU FIDE Arbiters seminar

for female participants

Arbiters Corner

Upcoming- Tata Steel

Chess

Fun Zone

Newsletter December 2020

JONES GAWAIN WINSEUROPEAN ONLINE BLITZCHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2020

European Online Blitz Chess Championship 2020 tookplace from 18th-20th of December, and was playedthrough Tornelo online platform with participation of morethan 300 players from 40 different European federations.The event was played within two stages: Qualification andTop 16 knock out phase.

3Newsletter December 2020

The match for the third place wasplayed between Bluebaum Matthias(GER, 2670) and Navara David(CZE, 2697) and concluded afterthree games in favour for TopGerman Grandmaster with result2.5-0.5.

Top 16 players won money prizesaccording to the Top16 Finalstandings:1)Jones Gawain (ENG, 2670)2)Shirov Alexei (ESP, 2662)3)Bluebaum Matthias (GER, 2670)4)Navara David (CZE, 2697)5)Petrosyan Manuel (ARM, 2628)6) Indjic Aleksandar (SRB, 2604)7) Meier Georg (GER, 2628)8)Yilmaz Mustafa (TUR, 2630)9)Hovhannisyan Robert (ARM,2642)10) Safarli Eltaj (AZE, 2598)11)Pantsulaia Levan (GEO, 2553)12)Demidov Mikhail (RUS, 2523)13)Wojtaszek Radoslaw (POL,2705)14)Deac Bogdan-Daniel (ROU,2625)15)Onischuk Vladimir (UKR, 2662)16)Ozen Deniz (TUR, 2397)

Final lists and list of prizes can befound on the ECU Website.

British Chess Champion (2012,2017) Jones C B Gawain (ENG,2670) won the event after heconvincingly defeated Shirov Alexei(ESP, 2662) in the Final match ofTop 16 phase, with result 2.5-0.5.

The best ranked Senior players areawarded with an invitation forEuropean Blitz and Rapid ChessChampionship in Katowice 2021:Bykhovsky Avigdor (RUS, 2400)with 5.5 points, Efimov Igor (MNC,2416) and Mazi Leon (SLO, 2340),each with 5 points.

Sarana Alexey (RUS, 2640) was thebest-ranked U20 player with 7.5points, while Mammadzada Gunay(AZE, 2443) was the best rankedGirl U20 with 6.5 points.

Special prizes

Top three Women players of theevent were:Stefanova Antoaneta (BUL,2466) with a score of 7/11 pointsin the Swiss stage,Sargsyan Anna M. (ARM, 2402)with 6.5/11 points andSocko Monika (POL, 2421) with6 points.

European Online BlitzChess Championship

Top Women players


Players ranked on 17th, 18th, 19thand 20th place were awarded withinvitation for European Blitz andRapid Chess Championship inKatowice, December 2021 (free ofcharge for 4* B&B and entry fee):Steinberg Nitzan (ISR, 2553),Theodorou Nikolas (GRE, 2554),Hakobyan Aram (ARM, 2598) andSanal Vahap (TUR, 2563).

The event was LIVE broadcastedfrom ECU studio, with LIVEcommentaries by: WGM KetiTsatsalashvili, GM Marcin Tazbir andWFM Maria Leks.

Garayev Kanan (AZE, 2331) was thebest ranked U18 player with 8points, and Kacharava Nikolozi(GEO, 2443) was the best rankedU16 player.

All of them will be awarded aninvitation for European Blitz andRapid Chess Championship 2021which will take place in Katowice,Poland.

Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlowins European Women's OnlineClub Cup 2020

European Online Women’s Club Cup took place from19th-22nd December 2020 and was played throughTornelo online platform with the participation of 42 teams.

The event was played within Qualification stage playedwithin 5 groups and final stage which consisted of 10teams- the best two of each group.


The last round decided the medalists:UGRA (Russia) with a score of 11 matchpoints but better board points thanGAMBIT Volgograd (Russia) who tookthe bronze medal.

Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo

(Monaco) will receive the “Coupe

Princesse Charlène” during theopening ceremony of the 2021European Women’s Club Cup.

The second and third team win the silverand bronze e-medals – Final Group.Top-ranked four teams will be awardedalso with money prizes:1st Winner Team- Cercle d’Echecs deMonte-Carlo (Monaco) 2500 euros,2nd Winner Team-UGRA (Russia) 2000euros,3rd Winner Team– GAMBIT Volgograd(Russia) 1500 euros and4th Winner Team– Poland Hussars(Poland) 1000 euros.

European Online Women’s Club Cupwas LIVE broadcasted from ECU livestudio, together with live commentariesby GM Marcin Tazbir and WGM KetiTsatsalashvili.

Final results can be found here.

Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo(Monaco) convincingly won theevent and the prestigious EuropeanCup with a round to spare, anddespite the draw in the last round,scored 14 match points.

Individual e- Medals are won by 1st,2nd, and 3rd place of each board of finalGroup. The first winner of each Boardwill receive 200 euros (5 x 200).

The best players of the 1st board:

1st place- Gunina Valentrina 7/92nd place- Zawadzka Jolanta 6.5/93rd place Mammadzada Gunay 5.5/9

The best players of the 2nd board:

1st place- Kashlinskaya Alina 6.5/92nd place- Girya Olga 5/83rd place- Dzagnidze Nana 5/8

The best individual players per boards:

Top European female chess playerswill participate the event, such as:Aleksandra Goryachkina (RUS,2593) playing for team Cercled’Echecs de Monte-Carlo, MuzychukMaria (UKR, 2544) and MuzychukAnna (UKR, 2535) representing KyivChess Federation – Greco,Dzagnidze Nana (GEO, 2524)Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo,Kashlinskaya Alina (RUS, 2494)playing for Clichy-Echecs-92,Kosteniuk Alexandra (RUS, 2471)with team Clichy-Echecs-92 ...

European Online Women'sClub Cup

Participants


European Online Women's Club Cupwas played within two stages:Qualification and Final.

Qualifications Groups were played on19th and 20th of December, as RoundRobin events and the first two teams ofeach qualification group qualified forFinal Group which consisted of 10teams.

The time control was: 15min + 5 sec perplayer. The event was organised byEuropean Chess Union and Monte CarloChess Club, under the high patronage ofhis serene highness Prince Albert II ofMonaco.

The best players of the 3rd board:

1st place- Papp Petra 4/72nd place- Dauletova Gulmir 5/93rd place- Badelka Olga 4/7

Players with the best score of the 4th

board:

1st place- Dordzhieva Dinara 7/92nd place- Antolak Julia 4.5/73rd place- Paehtz Elisabeth 4.5/7

The best reserve players (board 5):

1st place- Buksa Nataliya 5.5/82nd place- Ambartsumova Karina 5/73rd place- Fataliyeva Ulviyya 2.5/5

The Closing ceremony has started withthe welcome speach of ECU President,Mr. Zurab Azmaiparashvili, whoaddressed all the participants andcongratulated to all the Winners.The Closing ceremony was hosted byWGM Keti Tsatsalashvili.

ONLINE AWARDING CEREMONIES

The Closing ceremony forEuropean Online Blitz andOnline Women's Club Cuptook place on 23rdDecember 2020, online.

ECU PresidentMr.ZurabAzmaiparashvili

ECU Women'sCommissionChairman, Mr.Jean MichelRapaire

FIDE VicePresident Mr.Lukasz Turlejat the ClosingCeremony ofECU Online

events

The Winners of EuropeanOnline Blitz Championship

The Winners of European Women's Club Cup- Cercled'Echecs de Monte Carlo

ECU Secretary General,Mr. Theodoros Tsorbatzoglou


The attendees of the Closing ceremony werealso: ECU Secretary General Mr. TheodorosTsorbatzoglou, FIDE Vice President Mr.Lukasz Turlej and other distinguished guests,

COMMUNIQUE OF THEECU GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2020

The annual ECU General Assembly 2020 took place online on 19th ofDecember with representatives and officials from 40 European ChessFederations. The meeting was interactive with video presentationsand productive discussion.

FIDE President, Mr. Arkady Dvorkovich joined the ECU GeneralAssembly and congratulated ECU for the good work organizing onlineactivities and for the fruitful cooperation in the common FIDE-ECUprojects.


A detailed video-report of activitiesof the past year was presented bythe ECU Board. Delegates andparticipants had the opportunity tocomment on the report and makesuggestions for future activities.

Main information and decisions:>The closing of the year 2019 wasunanimously approved and theBoard was discharged for the year2019.>The ECU Treasurer and Auditorconfirmed that ECU is healthyfinancially, regardless of the pastyear’s difficulties and is prepared toface any new challenges.>The budget for the year 2021 wasunanimously approved. Due to theongoing situation with Pandemic theECU Board will proceed to anynecessary adjustments, during theyear.>The Educational Commissionpresented the report on the 2020activities and the next steps on therunning projects connected with theFIDE development fund andErasmus+.

ECU GeneralAssembly 2020

All the details together withmaterials of the ECUGeneral Assembly can befound on ECU website,

ECU

GENERAL

ASSEMBLY


>The Arbiters’ Council presented anoverview of the activities of the year2020 and future plans.>The achievements of the ECUWomen’s Commission werepresented and included webinarsonline training and events like theEuropean Women’s Cub Cup.>The Icelandic Chess Federationthat will host the European IndividualChess Championship 2021 inReykjavik, will search the option ofmoving the event in May 2021.>ECU Vice President Mr. JohannPoecksteiner read the message ofone of the founders and Presidentof European Chess Union(1986-1999) Professor KurtJungwirth. Mr. Jungwirth presenteda small chronicle of ECU from itsfoundation till this day andcongratulated all those whocontributed to its successful course.>The next ECU General Assembly isscheduled for November 2021 inSlovenia, during the European TeamChess Championship 2021.>The next edition of EuropeanGolden Pawn announced forFebruary 2022.

Austria’s current Number 1 MarkusRagger was voted Austria’s Player of theCentury by the readers of ‘Schach aktiv’magazine.

Shortly after the turmoil of World War I,the Austrian Chess Federation wasfounded in December 1920 in the HotelPalace in the chess metropolis ofVienna.

The ACF started with 22 clubs. JosefKrejcik, who was also one of thestrongest players at that time, waselected the first president. Krejcik wasfollowed by Josef Hanacik and FranzCejka, and from 1971 long-termpresident Prof. Kurt Jungwirth shapedAustrian‘s chess life for 46 years. Heachieved the recognition of chess as asport, was founder and president of theECU and vice-president of the FIDE.Christian Hursky is heading the ÖSBsince 2017.

The magazine “100 Years of ACF” takesa journey back in time (Wilhelm Steinitzconquered the chess world from Vienna,Carl Schlechter and Rudolf Spielmannwere world-class players) and presentsthe currently strongest German-speaking GM Markus Ragger asAustria’s player of the century.

Austrian Chess Federation - 100 years anniversary!

Austrian Chess Federation(ACF) was founded in Viennaon December 12, 1920, and onthe occasion of the 100thanniversary, the ACF presents anexclusive chess magazine.

Légende Nemo enim ipsam voluptatemquia voluptas sit aspernatur.

From the left toright:JohanPoecksteiner(ECU VicePresident),Prof.KurtJungwirth,TheodorosTsorbatzoglou(ECU SecretaryGeneral)

Austrian ChessFederation

ECU Website page of theAustrian Chess Federation:https://www.europechess.org/federations/austria/

Official Website of AustrianChess Federation


Managers, artists and politicians likeArnold Schwarzenegger talk about whychess plays an essential role in theirlives.

Further contributions to the magazineare dedicated to the successful workwith young talents, the growing femalechess scene and the future developmentof the sport of chess.

Austrian President Alexander Van derBellen, ECU President ZurabAzmaiparashvili and FIDE PresidentArkady Dvorkovich congratulated thehistoric #Chess Federation and areconvinced that chess in Austria has abright future ahead of it in the nexthundred years.

Frank Hoffmeistertells us the historyof Belgian chess.

BELGIAN CHESS FEDERATION -100 YEARS YOUNG

Chess tradition in Belgium started long before the creation of the nationalchess association. Like all the major cities, Brussels already had a chesscafé in the 19th century, the Café de l’Europe, which housed a chess club in1815, and the chess enthusiast will have analysed the games played duringthe several tournaments of Ostend at the beginning of the 20th century.

oughly a hundred years ago, on 17December 1920, representatives ofthe leading clubs in the country,namely from Antwerp, Ghent, Liège,and Brussels gathered in the ‘Cercledes Échecs Bruxelles’ for a specialoccasion. They signed the statuteestablishing the Belgian ChessFederation!

The first secretary of the newly bornchess federation, Edmond Lancel,would later publish the famousBelgian chess magazine‘L’Échiquier’ with regularcontributions from Alekhine, Rétiand Tartakower (1925–1939).

Edgard Colle(right) against

Alekhine in1925

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The foundation of the Belgian ChessFederation in 1920 also provedbeneficial for the inception of FIDEfour years later. The Belgianrepresentative Léon Weltjensbecame a co-signatory of the FIDEStatute in Paris 1924, and theBelgian chess champion, EdgardColle, impressed with a third place inthe first amateur worldchampionship.Colle would also become a regularfixture in international professionaltournaments, but his prematuredeath in 1932 prevented him fromputting Belgium among the leadingchess nations in Europe.

For those wanting to know moreabout our history, we recommendthe book written by FrankHoffmeister at the occasion of the100th anniversary of the federation.It is available in Dutch, French andGerman, and it can be ordered bywriting to [email protected] .

Belgian also have an entrepreneurialspirit, so that it is no surprise thatBelgians are also keen to make aninternational contribution, such as WillyIcklicki (Chief Operating Officer at FIDE),Patrick Van Hoolandt (president of theA.I.D.E.F., the international French-speaking chess association) and otherBelgians who promote chess in thevarious commissions of FIDE and ECU.And what about other Belgian ‘products’:Houdini, the chess program, andThinkers Publishing, one of the bestchess editors in the world. Is it thereforea surprise that – even without having realtop players – we also manage toorganize big tournaments. Spa 1926,Liège 1930, Antwerp 1932 and Ostend,again, in 1936–1937. In a less distantpast, the top elite in chess came to playin the Lost Boys (Antwerp), the Swifttournaments (Brussels) and the GrandChess Tour (Leuven). And even theyouth can play in ideal conditions: theorganizers of the Belgian Youth ChessChampions make use of about 120electronic chess boards.

Our Burgundian lifestyle is also reflectedin the world of chess. The habit ofoffering something to drink before agame (and more than one drink after it)is something that surprises playerscoming from abroad.

Belgian chess history has been characterized by three main aspects:

The national chess federation has always had to demonstrate enormous flexibility and adaptability. In our smallcountry, the political situation has never been simple and when the country was split into three language communitiesin 1970, this naturally also had an impact on chess. Three regional federations were founded under the nationalfederation, each of which must abide by regional rules and decisions.

Chess is for example only recognized as a sport in the German-speaking community,not in the other ones. The large proportion of German-speaking teams in the firstdivision of the national team competition is therefore quite normal. For some yearsnow, the Ministry of Education in the French-speaking community has allocated aconsiderable amount of money to the development of school chess, but again, notthe Ministries of Education in the other communities.

Daniel Dardha

Source: SchaakwonderDaniel Dardha – Gazet

van Antwerpen(gva.be)

TEXT BY:

Philippe Vukojevic

> Board Member of theBelgian Chess Federation> Member of ECUEducational Comission .


And our tournaments are not only forchess lovers, but also for life lovers.Why not play the tournament of Ghentduring the festivities in the city, Brugeswith its beautiful decor, Charleroi with itsrelaxed atmosphere, Brasschaat with itsconviviality or Liège with its warmhospitality?

Is it our lifestyle that made a lot ofplayers settle in Belgium? VictorSoultanbeieff and Georges Lalevitch, theunfortunate Akiba Rubinstein and later,top trainer Vladimir Chuchelov andMichael Gurevitch came to Belgium andeven Magnus Carlsen went to aninternational school in Belgium when hewas 7. Did he learn some valuable skillsto become World Champion in Belgium?

Our contribution at the chess board maynot be underestimated neither: wementioned Colle already, who gave hisname to a rock-solid opening, andJadoul gave his name to a variation inthe Scandinavian, but Belgians are alsoknown for their problemists. And did youknow we even have a world champion?Indeed, in 2017 Daniel Dardha hasbecome U14 world champion blitz andtwo years later, he even became theyoungest national champion at the ageof 13 years…In short, the Belgian chess federation is100 years old, but still alive and kicking.

ndeed, Gunter Delhaes wouldn’tbreak the record of the longestpresidency in Belgian chess history.He was at the head of the nationalfederation for no less than elevenyears. Only one chairman held thatpost longer than he did. Gunter'slong chairmanship was not at allself-evident, because during histerm of office, the Belgian ChessFederation went through one of itsmost serious crises, when a memberof the board had robbed the savingsaccount.Today, the federation is doing wellagain, and that is largely thanks toGunter, who always put thedevelopment of chess first. By theway, that was not only the case inthe national chess federation.He had already developed his ownclub, Rochade Eupen, into one ofthe most important clubs in thecountry.He also made every effort in theinternational organisations, ECU andFIDE, whether it was in the eventcommission or in the ethicscommission. Moreover he supportedand advised members of the BCF intheir goal to realize an internationalcareer in ECU as well as in FIDE.

Gunter Delhaes- honorary presidentof the Belgian Chess Federation

At the last general assembly of the Royal Belgian ChessFederation, Gunter Delhaes no longer stood for thechairmanship of the national federation.The end of an era.

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TEXT BY:

Philippe Vukojevic

> Board member of theBelgian Chess Federation> Member of ECUEducational Commission


For that reason Gunter became arespected person in the internationalchess world as well as in the BelgianChess Federation.

It is therefore not surprising that theBCF governing body decided toinclude him in the list of HonoraryPresidents?

The fact that this is not an end pointfor Gunter characterizes himentirely, because even before thathonorary title was voted, he said thatthe federation could still contact himif he could still be of any use with hisexpertise.

The development of chess first.That is how we know GunterDelhaes, our latest honorarypresident.For sure Gunter will always be animportant support in de BelgianChess Federation.The board of the BCF wishes tothank Gunter for his many years ofdedication for chess in general andfor chess in the BCF in particular!

CHESSTECH 2020 CONFERENCE

Running parallel to the FIDE Congress wasChessTech2020, the online conference on chess andtechnology, which drew 526 registrations from more than70 countries.

Following a welcome to the two-day-meeting from Zurab Azmaiparashvili,President of ECU, the FIDEPresident Arkady Dvorkovich gave akeynote address Chess: DrivingTechnological Innovations in the21st Century and answered a widerange of questions afterwards.The event, the 8th in the sequenceof the London Chess Conferences,was directed by John Foley fromChessPlus Limited, a London-basedtraining and education company,with a programme developed byStefan Löffler of ChesstechNews.

FIDE was a foundation sponsorthrough its continental funding of theECU.

ECU PresidentMr.Zurab

Azmaiparashvilisent a welcome

message#ChessTech


Commercial sponsors of the eventincluded Tornelo, Chessable, DGT,LearningChess, ChessKid,ChessLang, SzuperChess,GameAhead Consulting andChessStars.

The Zoom-based conferencecomprised 44 sessions with 122contributors. The conference wasvery well received with an averagesatisfaction star rating of 4.3/5.According to the post-conferencesurvey, the three most frequentdescriptions of the conference were“interesting”, “informative” and“inspiring”.

ChessTech2020

Recordings

For those who did not attend theconference, these are available inthree categories. Some areavailable to the general public andare being released one-by-one withsocial media notifications.A second category is for thosepeople who registered for theconference and may not have beenable to get into some popularsessions.The third category is reserved forthose with professional tickets.Access to categories two and threeis available for a modest fee.


There were many memorable sessions.• One of the most important topics wasanti-cheating on which there were threein-depth sessions examining differentperspectives.• Many attendees were impressed byChris Callahan’s overview of the freeplatform Lichess.• The book presentations from DavidSmerdon (The Complete ChessSwindler) and Noam Manella (Think Likea Machine) provided deep insights intocognitive psychology.• Daniel King’s honest account of howhe built up his YouTube channelPowerPlayChess attracted manyadmirers. Another session on streamingchess gave advice from setting upTwitch to running a successful channel.• The clear presentation by ShohrehBayat and Judit Sztaray on onlinearbitration was praised by the arbitercommunity.• Many chess teachers valued thepresentations from a range of educationcompanies including LearningChess,ChessKid, Chesser, AcornChess, andChessLang

• The session on sponsorship wasexcellent.• The gender issues from the previousconference were revisited in a livelyinternational forum.• There were three sessions onErasmus projects: Castle, CGS and8by8; and one session featuring theEuropean Research Council fundedDigital Ludeme Project.• There were several panels such as “IsChess an Esport?" and "How to MakeChess Greener?”• Many people praised the session onnew formats for chess journalism.• There was a competition for the bestchess startup 2020. This was won byChessvision.ai by Pawel Kacprzak fromPoland.In addition to the above sessions inEnglish, there were also segments of theconference conducted in French,Spanish and German which werereported to be highly satisfactory.The conference also comprised a socialnetworking “Chess Café” where it waspossible to meet with other attendees inan informal atmosphere.

The followingparticipantssucceeded in thetest and will beawarded a norm forthe FIDE Arbitertitle, after theapproval of the nextFIDE Congress/Council

ECU FIDE ARBITERS SEMINAR FORFEMALE PARTICIPANTS

From 7 to 12 December 2020 a FIDE Arbiters’ Seminarwas organized on the Internet, by the FIDE Commissionfor Women’s Chess and the European Chess Union bythe support of FIDE Development fund.

he Seminar was held in the Zoomplatform. The Technical Organizer wasIA Mihail Prevenios (GRE).The Lecturer was IA Takis Nikolopoulos(GRE), FIDE Arbiters’ CommissionHonorary Chairman and FIDE Lecturerand the Assistant Lecturer were IA IlahaKadimova (AZE).The language of the Seminar wasEnglish.The lectures lasted in total for 20 hourswith the following subjects:1. The Laws of Chess ( including Rapid,Blitz and Appendices ) and the duties ofthe Arbiters in the Tournaments.2. The FIDE Competition Rules and tie-breaks.3. The systems of games, the Swisssystem and the pairing rules.4. The FIDE Titles and RatingsRegulations.

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5. The Regulations for the Titles of theArbiters.6. The FIDE Fair Play regulations andguidelines for Arbiters.

Seventeen (17) women from eleven (11)Federations (RUS (1), CYP (1), IRL (1),ISL (1), ROU (5), GRE (2), ENG (1),SVK (2), MKD (1), NED (1), LAT (1) )participated in the Seminar.Many examples and cases fromtournaments were presented and theparticipant showed great interest, askingquestions and participating in thediscussions.Fourteen (14) of them took part in theexamination test, which was held afterthe end of the lectures, and which,according to the FIDE Arbiters’Commission guidelines, lasted for four(4) hours and covered all the topics ofthe seminar.

Report by: IA Takis Nikolopoulos (GRE)FIDE Lecturer and IA Ilaha Kadimova(AZE) Assistant Lecturer

Details can be found on the ECUWebsite.

UPCOMING

ONLINE ECU ARBITERSCERTIFICATION COURSE

ECU Arbiters Council organises two Online ECU ArbitersCertification course for the FIDE and International arbitersin period from 16-19 and 27-30 Jnaury 2021.

The webinars are open to all FIDEand International arbiters.

For the 1st Webinar alll the 30 seatshave been booked in one day, andECU Arbiters council announced thedates for the next course.

The second Online ECU ArbitersCertification Course will take placefrom 27-30 January.

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For the European arbiters, the OAcertification will be required to workas an arbiter during the ECU onlinetournaments.

The course is open also to allarbiters around the world, who wishto have a special education andcertification.

The cost for certification is 30 Eurofor the seminar and 20 Euro for theexam- in total 50 Euro together, withpossibility for experienced onlinechess arbiters to only take the testwithout participation in the seminar.

The application deadline for thesecond course is 25th January

More information can be found onECU Arbiters Council Website.


Allow me to quote mr. TheodorosTsorbatzoglou, the secretary general ofECU, in his small reaction on Facebook:“It was an epic and historical year 2020for the whole world!”. I fully agree!In many ways, maybe it was a year weshould forget as soon as possible.Or maybe not?

Compared with 2019, 2020 was a totallydifferent year! No one doubt that Covid19 was the biggest cause.In 2019 ECU organized 13 OTBtournaments during which 168 arbiterswere appointed. However in 2020 noOTB tournaments were organized!They were all postponed and after a fewmonth they were even cancelled.It was a year in which ECU had to adoptin the new global situation digitizing allservices and events.The internet became an even moreimportant tool then the previous years,not only for the organization oftournaments but also to organizemeetings and seminars.This was a huge challenge for ECU aswell as for the ECU AC.With great proud and pleasure ECUannounced the birth of “the EuropeanOnline Chess Championships”.It offered the possibility to all chessplayers to still practice their favouritehobby.

Five championships were organized inclose cooperation with the ECU AC anda few national federations: TheEuropean Online Individual ChessChampionship 2020, The EuropeanOnline Youth Chess Championship2020, The European Online CorporateChess Championship 2020, TheEuropean Online Women’s Club Cup2020 and the European Online BlitzChampionship 2020.

Text by:

IA Geert Bailleul,Secretary of the ECUArbiters Council

ARBITERS CORNER

ECU AC, the strange and unbelievablestory of 2020.

To guide these championships in theright direction and to make sureeverything went smoothly, many arbiters(97) were appointed for these onlinechampionships.At that time, ECU AC realised that therewas a strong need for the training ofarbiters to be active during onlinetournaments. ECU AC realized that whatwe ask to an online arbiter is not whatwe need from an arbiter who is active ina standard tournament. ECU AC haslearned along the tournaments thatbeing an arbiter in one onlinecompetition is by far different from beingan arbiter in an over the board event.For that reason, and with the approval ofECU Board, ECU AC has set up anonline training program for “OnlineArbiter”.This certification, which will bemandatory to serve as an arbiter inEuropean Online Championships, willcertify that a particular arbiter has somespecial skills for online tournaments andconfirm the ability of an arbiter to work inonline events.

The first online training will be organizedin the second half of January. Furtherinformation can be found on the ECUAC website.ECU AC also organized a FIDE ArbitersSeminar which was, also forced byCovid 19, held online.

The FA seminar started on Monday May4th with 41 participants out of 27federations. For the first time the testwhich was used for the exam, was astandardized test in close cooperationwith FIDE ARB, which should be a normin the future for other FA Seminars.9 participants passed the test.

ARBITERS CORNER

Also other arbiters are invited to write anarticle if they feel the need to do so.They can send their article to thesecretary of the ECU AC.Even fun was provided with a riddle anda crossword.

Also the possibility is created to thearbiters to subscribe to our website.In that way, every arbiter doesn’t have tomiss any of the articles in the future, He/she will also be informed of otherannouncements and events of the ECUArbiters’ world.The ECU AC can always be in touchwith them.Other changes on our website wererelated to our reporting procedure.All forms for reporting procedure and forevaluation are now available online.

Other online workshops were alsoorganized such as an ECU Arbiters’Council Online workshop for Arbiters inOnline Chess, which was organizedtogether with FIDE Arbiters’Commission.Chairman Tomek Delega (ECU AC) andchairman Laurent Freyd (FIDE ARB)were the hosts.More than 500 arbiters attended. Thevideo on Youtube was watched for morethan several 1000 times.

Prior to the FA seminar, on Sunday May 3rd , there was also a workshop for all ECU arbiters, organized by the ECU Arbiters’Council. During this workshop the members of the ECU Arbiters’ Council explained what they have been doing during the 2 yearssince they have been appointed.The large number of participants (77!) shows that there was a need to organize such a workshop.The attending arbiters received a clear overview of the system of appointment, the evaluation of arbiters during ECU Events, anextensive chapter about GDPR, the reporting procedure, all kind of reports etc...Also the necessary information was given aboutthe ECU Arbiters’ Council website; what can be found on the website and were this information can be found.

Based on the comments and suggestions which were given during this onlineworkshop, ECU AC made some changes on their website.A new page was created were everyone can find all the articles from the past twoyears as well as links to the all E-magazine issues.Every month there is an article in the ECU Magazine, written by one of the membersof the ECU AC.

Text by:IA Geert Bailleul

Secretary of ECU AC

ECU Arbiters Council

IA Geert Bailleul, theauthor of the text is theSecretary of ECU ArbitersCouncil.

More articles can befound on ECU ArbitersCouncil Website.

20Newsletter Decemeber 2020

In addition a webinar about cheating inonline chess tournaments wasorganized in cooperation with DavidCordover, the founder of Tornelo, and aFIDE Arbiters Seminar for ladies.

And last but certainly not least the ECUAC decided during their online meetingon December 7th that the list of arbiterswhich was made after the “Call ofInterest” at the beginning of this year,will be used for the appointment ofarbiters in ECU Events in 2021.The arbiters which were appointed byECU AC to be active during the first(cancelled) OTB tournaments of 2020will be appointed first for the OTBtournaments in 2021.

When you are reading this article, 2020will already be a bad memory, for mostpeople to be forgotten as soon aspossible.Therefore, on behalf of the ECU AC, Iwould like to wish all our colleagues andchess friends a prosperous, healthy andhappy New Year!

Stay safe, stay happy, stay healthy!

ARBITERS CORNER

“I am not a European Arbiter,but many of them are myfriends, my oldest daughter isliving there, and also I lovereading your Magazine eachmonth.So I feel free to give you myopinion regarding movecounter.

Despite players like to see allthe time available at any time,and you don´t have half of theplayers in the first two roundsasking why their time was notadded, cons of using movecounter are more decisive.

When players forget to presstheir clocks, the flag falls after40 moves were completedand you have to correct theclocks and disturb them.

The move counter,to use or not to use?

A few weeks ago I received an email from IA-A Sabrina de SanVicente (a colleague from Uruguay) with her opinion about themove counter after an article about that subject has beenpublished in the ECU Magazine.I quote her complete mail below.

IA-A Sabrina deSan Vicente

TEXT BY:

IA Geert BailleulSecretary of ECU AC

If anyone would feel theneed to react on this subject,please don’t hesitate to doso!

You can always contact theECU AC([email protected]@skynet.be).


The worst situation is createdby players pressing the clocktwice, the 30 minutes aregiven before 40 moves. Theyhave to stop the clock andcall the arbiter. The arbiterhas to go to the board,examine the situation, andadjust the clocks. Meanwhile,players eventually findwinning ideas. This could alsobe used to cheat, a playercan press twice the clockwhen the opponent goes tothe toilet and make hisopponent lose on time whilehe thinks that 40 moves werecompleted.

That´s why I prefer not to useit. Having to intervene in agame at that moment shouldbe avoided as much as youcan.”

UPCOMING

The 83rd edition of the prestigiouschess tournament, often called"Wimbledon of Chess"- Tata SteelChess 2021 - this year will compriseonly Masters event, which will takeplace from 15-31 January in Wijkaan Zee,the Netherlands.

Fourteen top Grandmasters willparticipate the event which will beplayed in 13 rounds, Round Robinsystem of play.Reigning World Chess ChampionMagnus Carlsen (NOR, 2862) willparticipate the event for the 17thtime in his chess career.Among the players are also:Fabiano Caruana (USA, 2823),Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2784), Anish Giri (NED, 2764),Alireza Firouzja (FIDE, 2749), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (POL, 2743),Pentala Harikrishna (IND, 2732),Daniil Dubov (RUS, 2710),Radoslaw Wojtaszek (POL, 2705),David Anton Guijarro (ESP, 2679),Andrey Esipenko (RUS, 2677),Jorden Van Foreest (NED, 2671),Nils Grandelius (SWE, 2663) andAryan Tari (NOR, 2625).

More details about the event can befound on the Official website.

TATA STEEL CHESS 2021

Ambassador of theTata Steel 2021 - GMAnish Giri


FUN ZONE

In this edition of the ECU E-Magazine we prepared foryou three winning positionsby 1st World WomenChess Champion- VeraMenchik!

Solutions fromNovember 2020

#Puzzle 11.Kd2!! Bg7 [1...Kg7 2.Ns6 Kh63.Nxf5#] 2.Nd6 Bf8 3.Ne8#

#Puzzle 21.Qxg6!! Kxg6 2.R1f6 Kg53.Rf5+ Kg6 4.R7f6+ Kh75.Rh5+ Kg7 6.Rg5+ Kh7 7.Bf5#

#Puzzle 31.Qxf6 gxf6 2.Rxf6 Qh5 3.Rf8+Kg7 4.e8=Q Re2+ 5.Kf1 Qxh3+6.Kxe2 Qg2+ 7.Rf2 Qe4+ 8.Kd2


WHO WAS

VERA

MENCHIK

(1906-1944)?

Vera Frantsevna Menchik (1906 –

1944) was the 1st World Women

Chess Champion.

>Vera learned chess in 1915, taughtto her by her father. The familymoved to England in 1921, whenVera was 15. In that year she wonthe British girls' championship.>In 1923 she began participating inmen's international tournaments.>In 1926 Vera won the First BritishGirls' Open Championship.>In 1927 she won the London ladieschampionship with a pefect 5-0score.>FIDE established the 1st worldchampionship for women in July,1927, which Vera won at the age of21 in London (with 10 wins and 1draw in the last round).>She won every Women's WorldChampionship after that: Hamburg1930, Prague 1931, Folkestone1933, Warsaw 1935, Stockholm1937 and Buenos Aires 1939.

e-magazine december2020 · 2021. 1. 11. · e-magazine december2020 cercle d'echecs de monte-carlo...

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