2015 European Senior Chess Championship

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Andrew Zigmond
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European Senior Chess Championships, Eretria Greece

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Wed May 06, 2015 9:52 pm

The ECF website has drawn attention to this event http://escc2015.chessdom.com/results-and-standings/ and it looks like our players are doing us proud including some well known names.

As Secretary of Harrogate I'm equally proud to be able to say that no less than two of our players; Mick Stokes and Douglas McKerracher; are competing although Douglas is representing Scotland. Given the number of times the Harrogate championship has come down to a showdown between the two I can't wait to find out how they felt about being paired in the first round ...
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Carl Hibbard
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Re: European Senior Chess Championships, Eretria Greece

Post by Carl Hibbard » Wed May 06, 2015 10:01 pm

Under discussion in Seniors section for a while this is not the other place.
Last edited by Carl Hibbard on Wed May 06, 2015 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Merged now.
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Andrew Zigmond
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Wed May 06, 2015 10:05 pm

Carl - I apologise. I assumed it belonged under International News and didn't think to look under Seniors.
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Carl Hibbard
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Carl Hibbard » Wed May 06, 2015 10:07 pm

Andrew Zigmond wrote:Carl - I apologise. I assumed it belonged under International News and didn't think to look under Seniors.
No hassle moved! Barcelona were good by the way.
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MartinCarpenter
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by MartinCarpenter » Wed May 06, 2015 11:09 pm

That really is an impressively long way to go for them to have to play each other! At least it was a long tournament.

Stokes seems to be having a very credible time of it.

Chris Rice
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Chris Rice » Thu May 07, 2015 4:02 am

In the 50+ Sturua must be there now and the real battle will be for silver and bronze so c'mon John & Keith! Of the other English players, Brian Hewson is on 4.5/8, Terry Chapman has fallen away to 4/8 and Meyrick Shaw is on 3/8. Full pairings are here is you want to see who they are playing in the final round: http://chess-results.com/tnr171508.aspx ... d=9&wi=821

1 GM Sturua Zurab 2536 6½ 5½ IM Smolin Sergey 2272
2 GM Raetsky Alexander 2419 5 6 GM Nunn John D M 2601
3 IM Bellia Fabrizio 2433 5½ 5½ GM Arkell Keith C 2493
4 IM Berkovich Mark A 2362 5½ 5 IM Bruno Fabio 2418
5 FM Furman Boris 2217 5 5½ IM Petran Peter 2362

In the 65+ section it looks to be between Rooze and Kupreichik for the gold and could well be a very exciting finish. Michael Stokes is doing very nicely on 5/8, as is Scot, Alastair White 4½, Anthony Ashby and Alan Gregg are on 4/8 and Douglas McKerracker on 3/8.

1 GM Kupreichik Viktor D 2373 6½ 5½ GM Gaprindashvili Nona 2302
2 IM Rooze Jan 2281 6½ 5½ FM Gruzmann Boris 2200
3 GM Vasiukov Evgeni 2416 6 5½ Muratoglu Salih 1960
4 FM Hohler Peter 2150 4½ 5 Stokes Michael 2135
5 GM Pushkov Nikolai 2313 4½ 4½ White Alastair F 2058

Mick Norris
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Mick Norris » Thu May 07, 2015 10:31 am

Rank after Round 8
Rk. SNo Name sex Gr FED Rtg Pts. TB1 TB2 TB3
1 2 GM Sturua Zurab O50 GEO 2536 6.5 2412 38.0 42.0
2 1 GM Nunn John D M O50 ENG 2601 6.0 2404 39.0 44.0
3 3 GM Arkell Keith C O50 ENG 2493 5.5 2403 37.5 41.5
4 10 IM Petran Peter O50 SVK 2362 5.5 2383 36.0 36.5
5 5 IM Bellia Fabrizio O50 ITA 2433 5.5 2333 37.0 41.5
6 9 IM Berkovich Mark A O50 ISR 2362 5.5 2302 35.0 38.5
7 12 IM Smolin Sergey O50 UKR 2272 5.5 2164 29.0 32.0
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Mick Norris
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Mick Norris » Thu May 07, 2015 10:39 am

If Sturua loses, John obviously gets the title with a win, but a draw should see him ahead on tiebreak too - indeed in that scenario, a win for Keith would surely see him overtake Sturua on tiebreak too

3 black wins would be fab

More plausible perhaps that Sturua draws, John wins and John is champion on tiebreak
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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Thu May 07, 2015 11:04 am

There could be a six-way tie for first on 6.5/9. Would John and Keith definitely be ahead of the rest in that scenario?

Tim Harding
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Tim Harding » Thu May 07, 2015 11:46 am

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:There could be a six-way tie for first on 6.5/9. Would John and Keith definitely be ahead of the rest in that scenario?
According to the ECU tournament regulations, which I think apply in this event for tiebreaks,
the first tiebreak rule:

(a) Average Rating cut-1, the highest number wins;

Unlike last year's Worlds (where Keith narrowly lost out to Sturua on a cumulative score tiebreak rule) the result on rule A is calculable before play starts. Has anyone done the calculation yet?


LATER: I am no mathematician but I have just tried inputting the figures into an Excel spreadsheet.

I probably did something wrong or misunderstood the rule as the figures I get do not match the TB1 figures shown in chess-results.com for the first tiebreak.
Or have chess-results applied the wrong tiebreak rule?

If Sturua is ahead (as shown there, he has 2412) then he only has to agree a quick draw. But on my calculation, (which includes the rating of the last-round opponent but not the lowest-rated opponent and not own rating) Sturua would be 2395. I have John at 2406 and Keith 2407.
The TB2/TB3 Buchholz scores (which can change depending on results in the last round) only come into consideration if TB1 is equal.

If my calculation is right then a win for John and draw for Sturua would mean John is first.
DON'T trust me, John. Please check the rules again and do your own calculation.

A loss for Sturua, draw for John and win for Keith would give the unlikely multi-tie scenario. The others are way behind on that tiebreak and Keith would be narrowly first on my spreadsheet but Sturua still first if chess-results.com figures are correct.

Realistically, Sturua has White and the lower rated opponent and has not slipped up in this event yet. John's decision to offer him an early draw with White in a early middle game position judged by Houdini to be += seems strange but maybe he wasn't well that day. I don't know the reasoning behind it.
Last edited by Tim Harding on Thu May 07, 2015 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mick Norris
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Mick Norris » Thu May 07, 2015 12:09 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:There could be a six-way tie for first on 6.5/9. Would John and Keith definitely be ahead of the rest in that scenario?
Based on the table above, I think so, but I am not certain
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LawrenceCooper
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by LawrenceCooper » Thu May 07, 2015 12:14 pm

Nunn halved out in 9 moves to guarantee himself a medal (I think).

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Thu May 07, 2015 12:17 pm

The TB1 in the above listing for the rankings after round 8 appears to be something different than the average of the opponents' ratings (maybe it is the adjusted FIDE average - Petran played a 1466 in round 2, which seems a bit unfair to include in the average). My calculations for the total sum of opponents' ratings (regardless of how low that is) are as follows:

Sturua: 21,299
Smolin: 19,531
Nunn: 21,397
Arkell: 21,391
Bellia: 20,918
Petran: 20,366
Berkovich: 20,428

So I agree with what Mick said above: "a draw should see [Nunn] ahead on tiebreak too - indeed in that scenario, a win for Keith would surely see him overtake Sturua on tiebreak too". Nunn would be just ahead of Arkell on tie-break.

In other words, Sturua needs to play for a win, unless Nunn and Arkell look lost or drawing.

Round nine time is "14:00" (not sure which time zone) which is two hours earlier than the other rounds.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Thu May 07, 2015 12:17 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote:Nunn halved out in 9 moves to guarantee himself a medal (I think).
Oh, he took less time than I did to calculate the tie-breaks... :oops:

Chris Rice
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Re: 2015 European Senior Chess Championship

Post by Chris Rice » Thu May 07, 2015 12:25 pm

So Sturua can safely offer a draw now but Smolin could refuse on the grounds that if he wins he's got a chance of landing the bronze if the other boards all halve out?

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