SOCAR becomes silver winner in European chess cup
Mon 03 October 2011
In our match on the fifth board Andrei Volokitin lost with black pieces to Peter Heine Nilsen. The match ended at the 18th step. Then Rustam Kasimjanov on the sixth board beat Liviu-Diter Nisipeanu at the 40th step. After this Shahriyar Mammadyarov lost to Etienne Bacraux on the third board. The Frenchman won at the 29th step.
Fortunately, Teymur Rajabov and Emil Sutovskiy won their games and led SOCAR forth. On the first board Rajabov beat Michael Adams at the 49th step, while Sutovskiy beat Arkadiy Neidich on the first board. It took the Bakuvian 50 steps to win.
Everything depended on the game between Alexei Shirov and Alexander Grishuk. SOCAR had at least to draw this match to win, but it was important to win to improve the board points. As a result, Grishchuk won!
After this victory SOCAR gained 12 match and 31.5 board points. We had to wait until the end of Mika (Armenia)-Chess Federation of Saint Petersburg (Russia) match. The team from Saint Petersburg had to win, but the Russian team managed to win 3.5-2.5 and outstripped SOCAR by 1 match point. Meanwhile, Czech Novi Bor with 11 points unexpectedly took the third place.
The awarding ceremony was held the same day. Chess players and SOCAR captain gained silver.
Three best chess players on each board also gained awards. It is encouraging that Teymur Rajabov became the best chess players in the tournament who played on the first board which means the title of the best championship of the whole European cup. He scored 4.5 points in five games. The last two matches over Ruslan Ponomarev and Michael Adams should especially be singled out.
Eltaj Safarli gained the third place on the sixth board and got bronze. He also gained 4.5 of 5 points.
Elmir Aliyev
News.Az
They’re the best team. They should have won.