| Round 8 at a Glance, 19.10.2003 The eighth penultimate round was the passionate emotional peak of the Championship for palyers and the audience alike, but maybe the most for the organisers. In the climax of the round, when the hands of the clocks measured the last few minutes, with seconds at stake here and there, the lights in the palying hall went out. The elctricity failure proved a serious one and took 35 minutes to repair. During that time the play had stopped.
Precisely at that time the Russian chess players were being congratulated as the new European Champions. Of three games completed they were leading Georgia 2:1.
(The only full point was earned by A, Grischuk (Black) on Board 2 against B. Jobava (Geo).
The game on Board 1 E. Bareev (Rus) - Azmaiparashvili was interrupted at a very dramatic point. Black (Bareev) was a pawn up in the rook and opposite coloured bishops endgame. The game was drawn upon "resumption" of the play. With this eighth in a row victory Russia was unreachable on top and is the European Team Champion for the first time since Debrecen (1992).
Georgia vs. Russia
The other match, where medals were at stake, Ukraine - Israel, was no less interesting. The leaders of the two teams R. Ponomariov (Ukr) and B. Gelfand (Isr) clinched into each other and played until the position's potential was completely exhausted. Ultimately none of them succeeded in reasserting his will to win. On Boards 2 and 3, the Israelian grandmasters Ilia Smirin and E. Sutovsky prevailed after great struggle over A. Moiseenko and V. Baklan, respectively, which secured them a sizeable victory with a score of 3:1. With this particular success Israel is sure to take the silver.
In the clash for the bronze Slovenia defeated France 2½ :1½ , while Netherlands and the Czech Republic finished 2:2.
Macedonia had the better of Hungary by 2½ :1½ . Once more the hero of the match was Kiril Georgiev (Black), who brilliantly overplayed P. Acs. We are naturally glad for the successful tournament of our grandmaster, but are also sad, because the beneficiary is not our National team.
The Bulgarian team, on the other side, was obliterated by Spain ½:3½ and lost its last theoretical hopes for any respectful ranking. The only player who deserves mentioning for his play was A. Delchev, who drew his game with A. Shirov.
The second Bulgarian team defeated Wales by 4:0.
The situation with the ladies might have been clarified after this round, but instead it becane even more complicated and entangled. The long-time leader - Russia lost somewhat surprisingly from Hungary by ½ :1½. With A. Galliamova out of the line-up, Matveeva (Board 1) drew with E. Dembo, and A. Kosteniuk lost to S. Vaida.
Within reach of the gold approached the teams of Armenia, which smashed England 2:0, and Poland, which was convincing against Ukraine with 1½ :½.
Poised for the last round, four teams - Russia, Armenia, Hungary, and Poland - are on their marks at the same line - 12 match points each.
Bulgaria-1 recorded another humiliating defeat by 0:2, this time from Serbia and Montenegro.
IM Peycho Peev |
Results:
Multimedia CD:
