A few details of my forthcoming adventure should anyone be particularly bored over the next week or so.
I shall be away with my 4NCL team at the European Club Cup in Durres, Albania – 7 rounds, 1st to 7th October ( flying at 07:00 the day after the Corden Cup 🙁- ).
The full details of the event and, subsequently, the results can be found here => Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com – 38th European Chess Club Cup
This is our 6th assault on Europe, over the last 15 years, and we always seem to be ranked just below halfway which means we get paired with a monster team in the first round (which is perfect, previous round 1 opposing teams have featured Ivanchuk, Kamsky, Vitiugov and assorted 2700’s etc ).
As of today, we are seeded 49th of 84 so a team with a mere average of 2625 beckons.
The top seeds, the imaginatively named ‘Superchess’ aren’t bad =>
1 GM Anand, Viswanathan 2754 IND
2 GM Rapport, Richard 2752 ROU
3 GM Deac, Bogdan-Daniel 2702 ROU
4 GM Shevchenko, Kirill 2677 ROU
5 GM Van Foreest, Jorden 2699 NED
6 GM Fedoseev, Vladimir 2683 SLO
7 GM Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter 2600 ROU
8 GM Lupulescu, Constantin 2581 ROU
The 4th seeded Norwegian team have quite a decent top board as well 🙂-
Anyway, if I get time / remember I shall try to post some updates and, maybe, even point readers at a decent game or two.
I guess the games (certainly the top x matches anyway ) will be going out live from 15:00 Albanian time. My Team is Blackthorne.
Update 3 – various players continue to fall ill and, interesting Albania part 2 – Andy got attacked by a bunch of wild dogs whilst walking home from a beach bar last night ! Only a few mild scratches though. Anyway, round 4 we beat a Belgian team 4-2. I struggled off my death bed to beat another 16 yr old and Andy won again. On 3/4 losing only to a 2658 he could have a GM norm punt if the form continues. I started to feel worse again during the day so will rest myself again in rd 5 when we take on a team from Hungary.
Udpdate 2 – so,yes, the hotel does a large buffet for brekkie, lunch and dinner but on Monday night players started falling ill after dinner. The hotel insist it is ‘a local virus’ the players beg to differ. There were several defaults and late team changes but, luckily, we managed a full match against a team of Swedish GM/IM/FM. We gave it a good go but went down 2-4. Andy’s GM opponent left a mate in 2 on from a good position….. nice to know GMs can do it too !
Quick update : Round 1 we got hammered 5.5-0.5 by the German team of GMs, Jon Nelson getting our sole half though Andy should have drawn with his 2658 opponent and I with my 2496. Both got ground down in endings though. Round 2 we beat a decent Kosovan team 4-2. I managed to dish out a good hammering to my opponent, rated 1822 but only 16 yrs old so ratings can be deceptive. Then Albania started to get interesting as a whole bunch of players, myself included, went down with food poisoning so I get rested for rd 3.
A good few local beverages were sampled during our extra day in Tirana and even a few at the grand opening ceremony last night. Playing the 5th seeded German team today. Annoyingly, they are resting Mamadyrov and their Egyptian 2680 …. so only 6 GMs ranging from 2658 to 2496. Better do some prep now ….
Brilliant!! Good luck Steve and I hope you enjoy sampling the local beverages as much as the local chess