Yorkshire Chess Association

Events

01/09/2021

European Individual Chess Championship 2021, Round 7

The disappearance from the pairings of Malcolm Pein and a few others is possibly explained by the following announcement .made on 1st September by the organising committee:

After round three we were approached by a player who expressed that he had symptoms of Covid-19. He went through all the necessary tests and was declared by the doctors as a positive case. As consequence, everyone who was in contact with him was examined by the tracing team of the Icelandic Directorate of Health and the chief epidemiologist of Iceland. Following that, it was decided that two other players had to be put in quarantine as a safety measure for the players involved and for every other participant. The players were informed verbally as well as in written form by the decision of the Directorate of health in Iceland. The players’ respective chess federations were also informed.

We wish everyone a safe tournament and the affected players all the best in these unfortunate circumstances.

Affected players were not named, but it looks as though Malcolm Pein may now be in quarantine. So, we wish the ECF International Director (if he is so affected), and the others involved, a successful outcome, with no adverse complications. There are currently 6 players “unpaired”, though some may simply have withdrawn.

The top-board game, GM Kacper Piorun (Poland) v GM Rauf Mamedov (Azerbaijan) was a 9-move draw.

Click here to play through the maddest game of the round, Nijdat Memedov 1-0 Maxime Lagarde.

Round-6 results of the remaining England contingent were as follows:

Bd	White		Res	Black
41	Gawain Jones	(3)	1-0	David Kjartansson	(3)
54	Lorin D’Costa	(3)	1-0	Johann Ragnarsson	(3)
71	Edmund C Player	(2)	1-0	Olafur Gisli Jonsson	(2)

If the England players’ opponents’ names sound like characters out of Jules Vernes’ Journey to the Centre of the Earth, then that is because they were all Icelanders.

Gawain Jones managed to turn in his second win, taking him to 4 out of 7, 2 points behind the leaders, with 4 rounds to go. Lorin D’Costa also won, and moves also to 4 out of 7. Edmund Player’s game ground on longer, but he too won, so the England “team” result was

England 3-0 Iceland.

None of the England players’ games were among the ones broadcast live, so publication on this website of any of those games with have to wait until the round-7 PGN file become available on the event website, which is likely to be Saturday afternoon, as they are only up to round 4 at present in publishing PGN files.

PS (05/09/2021) The three England players’ game can now be seen in a later post, for which click here.