The European Individual Chess Championship is a chess tournament organised by the

European Chess Union The European Chess Union (ECU) is an independent association for the interests of European chess. Board members * Zurab Azmaiparashvili – President * Ion-Serban Dobronauteanu – Deputy President * Finnbjorn Vang – Vice President * Theodor ...

. It was established in 2000 and has since then taken place on a yearly basis. Apart from determining the European champions (open and women's), another objective of this tournament is to determine a number of players who qualify for the FIDE World Cup and the knockout Women's World Championship.

Mode of play

The event consists of two separate

tournaments A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

; an open event, and a women's event. Female players may participate in the open section. Both are a

Swiss system tournament A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...

, with a varying number of rounds. Historically, the only exception to this was the first Women's Championship tournament in 2000, which was held as a knockout tournament. In 2002, Judit Polgár narrowly missed out on the bronze medal in the open competition by losing a playoff match against

Zurab Azmaiparashvili Zurab Azmaiparashvili ( ka, ზურაბ აზმაიფარაშვილი; born 16 March 1960) is a chess grandmaster from Georgia. His peak Elo rating was 2702, achieved in July 2003. Career Azmaiparashvili became a Grandmaster in ...

. In 2011, Polgár won the bronze medal in the open competition at Aix-les-Bains, France. Apart from the first edition in 2000, where in case of a tie the Buchholz rating was used as a tie-breaker,

rapid Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Rapids are hydrological features between a ''run'' (a smoothly flowing part of a stream) and a ''cascade''. ...

play playoff matches are used to determine the medal winners as well as the world championship qualifiers.

Controversy

There have been a number of controversies associated with the tournament: * At most venues, participants and accompanying persons have been obliged to stay at the "official hotel", appointed by the local organizers. The room rates for participants, however, have been significantly higher than for other hotel guests. This in large part contributed to the founding of the ACP in 2003. Also the standard of the hotels as well as of the food has been a focus of complaints by players and journalists. * As the European Championships are part of the FIDE World Championship cycle, starting with the 2001 edition, the new, faster FIDE time control was used. This led to many complaints by the participants about increased stress, incessant time trouble and a steep deterioration of the quality of the games.

Results (open)

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 European Championship in

Podčetrtek Podčetrtek ( or ; german: Windisch Landsberg) is a settlement in eastern Slovenia by the river Sotla. It is the seat of the Municipality of Podčetrtek. The area belongs to the traditional region of Styria. It is now included in the Savinja St ...

, Slovenia was postponed to 2022.

Mode of play

Controversy

Results (open)

Results (women)

See also

References

External links