SOCAR Ajerbaijan win 2012 European Chess Club Cup

The 28th European Club Cup for Men and 17th European Club Cup for Women concluded today in Israel

42 teams competed in the European Chess Club Cup which ended today in Eilat, Israel.  There were 34 teams in the Open (Men) section and 8 teams in the Women section.  Each European federation was allowed to participate in this 7-round team Swiss tournament.  Each team had 6 boards with 1 or 2 optional alternates.  The time control was 40 moves in 90 minutes, followed by 30 additional minutes for the rest of the game with a 30-second increment per move from move 1.  Draw offers were not allowed before move 40.  The total prize fund was 60,000 Euros (~$80k).  But before the results, here are some statistics:

The Open section featured elite players and teams from all across the world, including 174 titled players, including 106 GMs, 31 players 2700+, and 5 teams with an average rating over 2700.  The draw percentage was 32.6%, with White scoring 54.6%.

Fighting Chess: less than 1/3 of the games were drawn

Individual Player Results (Pre-rating, Country, ECCC Team, Bd #):

• Top seed and World #4 GM Teimour Radjabov (2792, AZE, SOCAR Ajerbaijan, 1) scored 4/6 (+1) against an average opponent rating of 2663 (+0.5 rating points).
• Second seed, World #5 (#13 on the live ratings) and USA #1 GM Hikaru Nakamura (2783, USA, Obiettive Risarcimiento, 1) scored 5/7 (+3), for a disappointing 2640 performance (-8.8)
• Fifth seed, World #11 (#12 on the live ratings) and USA #2 GM Gata Kamsky (2755, USA, SOCAR Ajerbaijan, 5) scored 6/7 (+5) for a 2849 performance (+7.4)
• GM Maxim Matlakov (2665, RUS, Saint-Petersburg Chess Federation, 5) scored 4/4 and had the highest performance rating of the tournament (3189!), for an additional 7.7 rating points. In round 7, he defeated GM Boris Avrukh (2585), who is famous for writing (in my opinion) the best opening books in the world.

Maxim Matlakov: 21 years old, 3189 performance rating

When a team is the top seed with an average rating of 2747 (25 points ahead of the next highest average), including a 2755 on board 5, it would be a clear upset for them to not come in first.  Although SOCAR Ajerbaijan did come in first place, it was not so clear-cut.  They lost the first round to the 9th seed, Ashdod when Kamsky's win on board 5 vs. GM Evgeny Romanov (2611) was not enough to upset the losses of GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2748) to GM Andrei Volokitin (2724) and GM Veselin Topalov (2751) to GM Pavel Eljanov (2681) on boards 2 and 3.  Here is an overview of this elite team.

Bd	Title	Player Name	Nation	Rating	Seed	Score	Perf.	+/-
1	GM	Teimour Radjabov	AZE	2792	1	4/6	2788	+0.5
2	GM	Shak. Mamedyarov	AZE	2748	8	3/5	2725	-0.4
3	GM*	Veselin Topalov	BUL	2751	7	4.5/6	2814	+5.6
4	GM	Alexander Grischuk	RUS	2752	6	4.5/6	2802	+4.5
5	GM	Gata Kamsky	USA	2755	5	6/7	2849	+7.4
6	GM	Emil Sutovsky	ISR	2685	39	4/6	2664	-0.6
Alt 1	GM	Eltaj Safarli	AZE	2616	69	3/3	3075	+3.6
Alt 2	GM	Gadir Guseinov	AZE	2608	73	3/3	3086	+4.0

* Topalov was the FIDE World Champion between 2005-2006.

It is worth nothing that SOCAR's team captain is GM Vladimir Tukmakov (wiki), who is a very strong player himself.

Despite this first round setback, SOCAR was able to rally, scoring 6/6, suffering only 1 individual loss for the rest of the tournament!  They won rounds 2, 3, 4 with incredible scores of 5.5/6, 6-0, 6-0.  In round 5, they narrowly defeated the 8th seed, G-Team Navy Bor (2677) with 3.5/6.  In round 6, SOCAR beat the 4th seed, Saint-Petersburg Chess Federation (2706) with a score of 3.5/6, due to draws on all boards except GM Alexander Grischuk (2752) board 4 win against GM Sergei Movsesian (2699).  Saint-Petersburg  ended up tying for first with SOCAR but receiving the Silver Medal based on tiebreaks.  In round 7, SOCAR demolished Tomsk-400 (2690) 5-1.

In the end, SOCAR and Saint-Petersburg tied for first with 6/7, with SOCAR having slightly higher Sonnenborn-Berger tiebreaks (S-B).  Standings for the top 10 teams on tiebreak are below.

Place	Seed	Team	Rating	W	D	L	Pts/7	S-B
1-2	1	SOCAR Azerbaijan	2747	6	0	1	6	673.8
1-2	4	Saint-Petersburg	2706	6	0	1	6	665.5
3	2	SHSM-64	2722	5	1	1	5.5	590.5
4-7	3	Economist	2714	5	0	2	5	653.0
4-7	5	Ugra	2706	5	0	2	5	607.3
4-7	9	Ashdod	2668	5	0	2	5	595.8
4-7	7	Tomsk-400	2690	5	0	2	5	572.5
8-9	6	OSG Baden-Baden	2690	4	1	2	4.5	571.3
8-9	14	Siroki Brijeg	2489	4	1	2	4.5	478.3
10-16	8	G-Team Novy Bor	2677	4	0	3	4	553.5

Team Gold in Israel: Grischuk, Safarli, Kamsky, Tukmakov, Mamedyarov, Radjabov

In the women's event, the top seed, Monte-Carlo won with a perfect 7/7, two points ahead of second place.  Going into the tournament, Monte-Carlo was the clear favorite, having the top 3 seeds (who are #2, #3, #4 women in the world, behind the legendary GM Judit Polgar, who does not play in women-only tournaments) in the whole tournament, including the current Women's World Champion GM Hou Yifan, who will be defending her title soon enough.  Monte-Carlo also boasted a 106 average rating barrier between them and the second seed.

Gold for Monte Carlo: GM Muzychuk, IM Skripchenko, GM Yifan, GM Cramling, GM Koneru