ETCC Closing Ceremony

European Team Championship Closing Ceremony

The closing ceremony of the top event of the year, the European Team Chess Championships, focused on prize giving to the winners of the competition.

Germany with Arkadij Naiditsch, Georg Meier, Daniel Fridman, Jan Gustafsson, and Rainer Buhmann received the winner’s trophy in the Open section. Azerbaijan walked out with silver and Hungary with bronze.

The first place trophy in the women section was awarded to the fantastic team of Russia – Nadezhda Kosintseva, Tatiana Kosintseva, Valentina Gunina, Alexandra Kosteniuk, and Natalija Pogonina. The silver medals go to Poland and bronze to Georgia.

Board medals were awarded to 30 more players (see full list here) and 16 players achieved international title norms (see full list here).

Large photo album

A special photo album from the closing ceremony with all medal winners has been uploaded in the photo gallery. Click at this link to start at the first photo, and use the slide show button or the arrows to enjoy all the pictures.

Tip: browse the closing ceremony album here or view all albums arranged by rounds here

ETCC final round video

Video from the European Team Championship

Plenty of photos here: http://euro2011.chessdom.com/etcc-2011-photo-gallery/

The Stonewall Opening - Part 2 - The Zukertort System

This article is a summary for the full article on the Stonewall Opening - Chess Openings for Beginners for the full text.

Today we are going to be continuing my openings series on the Stonewall Attack. In part 2 of the Stonewall Attack Chess Beginner Series, I review a few black set-ups that could cause problems for white.

• Part 1 - Sac to Attack
• Part 2 - The Zukertort System
• Part 3 - Important Sidelines (Coming Soon)
• Part 4 - How to beat a Fiancheeto Defense (Coming Soon)

When to NOT play the Stonewall

The first segment of the video is covers a very aggressive black move order with a rapid d5, c5, and nc6 - tending to result in a Reversed Queen Gambit type position. I recommend that white does not stubbornly continue with the Stonewall against this set-up, but rather adapts the plan towards grabbing that c5 pawn and trying to hold on to it. While positionally it may not look terribly attractive, that extra pawn can drive a wedge into black's position and is usually pretty difficult for black to recover.



How to adapt to the King's Indian

In the second half of this video, I go over the King's Indian Defense and how white should adapt to this scheme for the black pieces. It is simply unreasonable to play the Stonewall against the King's Indian, as black will inevitably achieve the e5 break and a very comfortable position in the center. Moreover, the kingside fianchetto in this opening is extremely difficult to attack head-on - thus white needs to change plans with an open mind against the King's Indian Defense.

Part One of the Stonewall Series (in case you missed it)



This article is a summary for the full article on the Stonewall Opening - Chess Openings for Beginners for the full text.

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William Stewart is a National Master. He specializes in Online Chess Tutoring and maintains a daily updated Chess Blog

The National Champions Knight Raiders Recognized

Here are some pictures from the recognition tonight: https://picasaweb.google.com/SPICEChess/KnightRaidersRecognition



This was what the announcer said:

"The Texas Tech Knight Raiders Chess Teams are the reigning National Collegiate Chess Champions in three different divisions. In only the second year competing in Division I, the Knight Raiders stunned the chess world by winning the College Chess Final Four this past April in Washington, DC.

Now, for the first time in school history, they are also ranked as the number one team in the nation and they are looking forward to defend their titles this year.

The Knight Raiders Head Coach, 4-time World Champion and 5-time Olympic Champion, the first woman to lead a men's division I team to the National Championship, and the first woman to coach the number one ranked team in the nation, our very own Grandmaster Susan Polgar. Let's wish the team luck in their title defense.

Here are your National Champion Texas Tech Knight Raiders!"