Novy Bor Win 9th Medal At 2024 European Chess Club Cup

Third seed Novy Bor Chess Club—featuring GMs Vincent Keymer, David Navara, Thai Dai Van Nguyen, David Anton Guijarro, Nils Grandelius, Vidit Gujrathi, Mateusz Bartel, and Pentala Harikrishna—won the European Chess Club Cup on Saturday after defeating the top seed, SuperChess, 3.5-2.5 in the final round. This is their ninth European Club Cup medal (three gold, five silver, one bronze). 

Also the third seed, TAJFUN-SK Ljubljana—GM Nana Dzagnidze, GM Zhu Jiner, IM Olga Badelka, IM Laura Unuk, and WIM Zala Urh—won gold for the first time in the Women's section. The players on boards one through three also put up the best individual scores for their respective boards in the tournament.

Final Standings | Open Top 15

(See full standings here.) 

• Open: 9th Medal For Novy Bor Chess Club; Indian Players Make Their Mark
• Women: Slovenian Club Wins With Top Scorers On Boards 1-3; Zhu Boasts Best Performance

Open: 9th Medal For Novy Bor Chess Club; Indian Players Make Their Mark

The European Chess Club Cup took place on October 20 through 26 in the Hotel Zepter in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia. It was a seven-round Swiss tournament for teams with a time control of 90+30 plus another 30 minutes after 40 moves. A win was worth two points; a draw, one; and a loss, zero.

84 teams of eight players participated, with six players competing in each round and two reserves. Many of the world's best players, including the upcoming 2024 FIDE World Championship Challenger Gukesh Dommaraju, took part.

Last year's winner, Offerspill Chess Club, which was headed by GM Magnus Carlsen, didn't participate this time. The former world champion was far from Europe and, instead, could have been found on a warm beach in Mexico. At Chess.com's annual, in-person meetup, he played an eight-board simul and a rated company blitz tournament, and won both with perfect scores, to nobody's surprise.

GreenPawn Showdown | Top 10

(See full results here.)

Novy Bor Chess Club was the frontrunner in the European Chess Club Cup after round five, as the only team on a perfect score, and never lost their lead. In round six they drew the second seed, Alkaloid, and going into the final round, only Novy Bor Chess Club was in the lead with 11 points—the six others were a point behind. 

Anton, with a black win on board five, spared his team any potential drama with tiebreaks in round seven. Instead, they defeated the first seed, SuperChess, to win the tournament outright.

Playing the Italian Defense against GM Jorden van Foreest, Anton whipped up a kingside attack after 28.Qc4 f5!, which ultimately led to a winning rook endgame after he later found the tactic to trade more pieces: 43...Qxd2 44.Qxd2 Ne4. This was the last decisive game that won them the tournament.

After his team had won, Captain Petr Boleslav said on the broadcast that the victory was well deserved, pointing out that they drew the second seed and beat the first.

I hope that many fans are celebrating already in Czechia... I hope that it is a message that we are able to do good things about chess and so on, and I hope that it will be a big motivation for Czech players and they will want to join, for example, our club or they will put a bit pressure on the owners of their club to go to European Club Cup.

I hope that it will be a big motivation for Czech players.

—Petr Boleslav, Team Captain

As far as individual players, nobody stood out more than GM Arjun Erigaisi  (playing for Alkaloid), who after round five became the second Indian player to break 2800 live rating (the first was GM Viswanathan Anand). He also reached world number-three, briefly, on the live rating list.

His round-five win against GM Dmitry Andreikin pushed him over 2800. Andreikin defended a dangerous attack and reached a holdable rook endgame, but in a matter of a few moves it went downhill:

The job is not yet finished for Arjun, though. After his last-round draw against GM Vasyl Ivanchuk, he's at 2799 and number four in the world. Official ratings are published once a month, on the first day, so he will have to reclimb that mountain to formally cross the coveted 2800 threshold. His team, Alkaloid, finished second in the tournament with 12 points, and he was the best player of any team on board one.

Board 1 Best Players | Top 10

(See full list here.)

Vidit, who led Novy Bor Chess Club on board one, saw a 13-point increase and jumped back into the world's top 15. It wasn't all rosy for Indian grandmasters, however. GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (on SuperChess) suffered a difficult start with 1.5 points in the first four rounds, ultimately ending with 4/7, and dropped to number 18 in the world.

For Gukesh (also on SuperChess), it's his last classical showing before the 2024 FIDE World Championship against GM Ding Liren. After winning his first two games, he lost one and drew four to lose 11 rating points. Since players tend to hide their prepared openings before such an important match, we also shouldn't read too much into this individual result. He has one month to iron out his form.

As for other major changes in the ratings of top players, you may have noticed above that GM Fabiano Caruana gained nine points and jumped to world number-two, but he wasn't in Serbia. That gain was from winning his fourth U.S. Championship in St. Louis.

He, along with several other grandmasters such as the legendary GM Garry Kasparov, will be playing in Chess 9LX in St. Louis starting on Monday, October 28. 

Women: Slovenian Club Wins With Top Scorers On Boards 1-3; Zhu Boasts Best Performance

The Women's tournament format was the same as the Open except that teams were composed of four players and one reserve. There were 18 teams in total.

ZHU JINER'S TEAM WINS THE CLUB CUP!!!!!!!! 🏆🥳🥳🥳

Zhu Jiner was the best player in the whole competition (!!), and Nana Dzagnidze & Olga Badelka were the best on their boards too! 👏👏👏

Congratulations! 🎉🎉🎉🇸🇮https://t.co/95h73izfih
📷: ECCC#chess #womeninchess https://t.co/8FCE8PdUOG pic.twitter.com/QmqByX6pNS

— Women's Chess Coverage (@OnTheQueenside) October 26, 2024

TAJFUN-SK Ljubljana won the tournament also without needing tiebreaks. Dzagnidze (board one), Zhu (two), and Badelka (three) were all the best players in the tournament on their respective boards. 

(See full standings here.) 

Going into the final round, they were tied with SuperChess Club on 10 points each. However, in round seven SuperChess Club lost 4-5 against Sirmium Sremska Mitrovica, while TAJFUN-SK Ljubljana overcame number-one-seed Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo 2.5-1.5.

Badelka won the critical game on board three against Spain's number-one woman player, IM Sara Khadem. The players reached move 40 and gained 30 more minutes to navigate the bishop vs. knight endgame, where White's position was easier to play in this case with the bishop. White successfully stretched the black defense, temporarily trapping the knight to force a decisive concession: 

It was a welcome recovery for Badelka, who received a double forfeit with IM Leya Garifullina in the round before for making a draw in under 30 moves without calling the arbiter. That game didn't influence the round-six match result, however, as both Dzagnidze and Zhu won their games with a draw on board four.

Nobody had a better individual performance than 21-year-old Zhu, on board two. With a 14.5 rating gain and a 2693 performance, she jumped two places to be number 10 in the world among women.

Across both sections, there's a trend we can't ignore: India and China are in the spotlight. Whether it's in the upcoming world championship (Indian vs. Chinese player) or the women's world championship (Chinese vs. Chinese player), the two Asian countries have established themselves as superpowers in the chess world. With top individual scores, players from these countries proved it again in this event.

The 2024 European Chess Club Cup was a seven-round team Swiss tournament for European chess clubs. The Women's event was held concurrently, in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia. The events went from October 20-26 with a prize fund of €29,000 in the Open and €16,000 in the Women's.

Previous Coverage: 

• Arjun Joins Exclusive 2800 Club Thanks To Stellar Performance In Serbia