The central encounter in this round was the Russia - Israel match. Only these two teams had full scores - 8 m.p. each. The Russians won their fifth consecutive victory by 2Ѕ:1Ѕ again, the only win being of Grischuk over E. Sutowski. The Russian grandmaster sacrificed a pawn and beautifully trapped the queen of his opponent in the centre of the board. E. Bareev survived the pressure of Ilia Smirin in French Defence. In the queen endgame that his position was even more pleasant. The other two games were drawn quickly when the outcome of the match became known.

The junior Azerbaijan team won again. This time against the otherwise tight Slovenian team. The only individual win in this match was that of G. Guseinov (Black) against D. Sermek. The match was decided after T. Radjabov persisted putting up a long and resolute defence and drew on move 111 his game with A. Beliavski.

France overcame the hard-to-beat Germans. The man who brought home the victory was J.M. Degraeve playing T. Luther. On Board 2 C. Bauer (FRA) endured a very difficult endgame fraught with hardship against K. Lutz (GER) - a Knight and a pawn vs. A Bishop and two pawns.

Belarus and Netherlands could not make anything decisive - all four games were drawn. The most spectacular match was Serbia and Montenegro vs. Poland, which ended in a hard to comment 0-4 score. The Serbians, who only thwo rounds ago were among the leaders were surprisingly helpless today. This is the most humiliating loss of this team in all European Team Champioships so far. This must not underestimate the strong performance of the Polish team, which emerges as a very robust and serious medal-contender.
Georgia "outwitted" Estonia. The only non-drawn game in this match was the win of G. Kaheishvili over T. Seeman. In the Hungary - Czech Republic encounter the match victory of the Hungarians was due to the leader P. Acs on board 1.

The first Bulgarian team drew Greece 2:2. The match looked promising to the host team when I. Cheparinov beat Banikas. A. Delchev and V. Spasov drew quickly, but B. Chatalbashev engaged in a prolonged fight with A. Vouldis and finally lost.

The second team of the host country fought bravely and achieved three draws via P. Genov, M. Vasilev, and K. Rusev. Marijan Petrov however did not withstand and lost. This accounted for a minimal loss to the soundly playing Belgian team.

With the ladies the leaders in the ranking after 4 rounds Armenia and Bulgaria-1 did not take any risks. The first to draw were Е. Danielian and Antoaneta Stefanova, and a little later Emilia Djingarova and L. Mkrtchian followed the lead.

The lady players from Russia smashed England 2-0 in the absence of their leader Alissa Galliamova and topped the ranking with 9 M.P.

The other two encounters between favourites finished as follows: Ukraine - France exchanged a win each and drew the match, while Poland beat Georgia after a draw on Board 1 and a win of M. Socko over N. Dzagnidze in an interesting endgame.

Good for the second Bulgarian team, which scored a very important victory against the strong team of Azerbaijan. The debutee on the team Elitsa Raeva defeated the younger of the Mamedyarov sisters - Turkhan. Lyubka Georgieva, who played on board 1 in turn prevailed over the older of the sisters Zeynab.

IM Peter Drenchev