Azerbaijan defeats Russia, Romania joins the leading pack in the ETCC – Open Section

In the 6th round of the European Team Chess Championship – Open Section, Bulgaria and France were engaged in a tense struggle. Ivan Cheparinov’s third consecutive victory put Bulgaria into an early lead. Two more games were drawn and it was Andrei Istratescu who evened the score by defeating Kiril Georgiev.

Russia and Azerbaijan opened the match with two relatively quick draws. Thereafter, Gadir Guseinov held an inferior Rook endgame against Ian Nepomniachtchi, while Teimour Radjabov turned the table in the game with Peter Svidler and took a full point for the overall victory of Azerbaijan.

The most pleasant surprise so far in the tournament is the progression of the team of Romania, seeded 17th, who narrowly defeated Greece and emerged as the leader of the tournament on best tie-break score. Mircea Parligras won against Dimitrios Mastrovasilis while the remaining three games were drawn.

Romania, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria are sharing the first place with 10 match points each. Romania has 15.5 individual points, half a point more than the other two teams.

Armenia bounced back into medal contention after narrowly beating Spain with 2.5-1.5. Gabriel Sargissian put Armenia ahead, but Spain was close to equalising as Paco Vallejo repelled Levon Aronian’s assault and emerged with an extra piece. Vallejo, however, allowed three-fold repetition which Aronian immediately claimed.

Despite having their top board, Arkadij Naiditsch resting today, Germany defeated Italy 3-1. In this compelling game Georg Meier was victorious against Fabiano Caruana.

Netherlands, Slovenia and Hungary all signed minimal wins against Poland, Georgia and Latvia, respectively.

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Video by Vijay Kumar

France-Bulgaria

Greece-Romania

Russia-Azerbaijan

Armenia-Spain

Germany-Italy