European Chess Club Cup 2013 Round 2: Top Seeds Crush Opposition

Chess Blog for Daily Chess News and Trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hello everyone,

The top seeded teams continued with crushing the lower rated opposition in the 2nd round of the Open section in 2013 European Chess Club Cup. SOCAR allowed only one draw to the Swedish team Limhamns SK as IM Bjorn Ahlander held Teimour Radjabov on the first board.

Russian teams Malachite and Saint-Petersburg had no mercy and demolished their opponents with perfect 6-0 score. En Passant did manage to snatch two draws from the 4th seed Ugra.

Alexei Shirov (Malachite) won his game rather quickly. He said he sharpened the play in the opening wanting ‘to punish his opponent for the non-theoretical move 6…Be7.’ He expressed opinion that any of the four top seeded clubs can win the Cup.

Shirov also elaborated about his activities as tournament organizer. Since dropping out from the elite group he didn’t get many invitations for top events and he suddenly got some spare time. Some people turn to teaching but he decided to organize tournaments in Latvia.

It was quite tough in the beginning, because it takes about 2-3 months of daily work to prepare an event, but he was persistent and now everything goes easier.

Shirov added that the Latvian Chess Federation has announced the traditional Vladimir Petrov Memorial, which brings chess back to the famous venue Jurmala.

Chinese Grandmaster Wang Hao joined SOCAR only recently, after approaching Teimour Radjabov at the tournament in Norway and asking ‘if the club needs him’. Last year he missed the European Club Cup because he had problem with visa, but this time he arrived directly from Kings Tournament in Bucharest and was happy to grab three rest days in between.

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