European Senior Championship Round 9

Rudy's final report. I have added Rudy's games to some of the reports of earlier rounds. I have also now added his wild (Rudy's word) final round game. All the games of the Welsh team can be found on the Welsh Chess Union site. Congratulations to the Welsh team, and especially to Rudy, on an excellent performance.

The third time, draw with Bl, and win with Wh. The team strategy since after a tough preceding round we played one of three teams weaker than us, was to sit on the position and wait for someone to break through. It didn't quite work out like that.

First to finish was Richard. Playing against a solid London System various minor pieces were swapped on e4, and his opponent offered a draw. Unfortunately Richard wasn't at all sure what was happening in Rudy's game, so continued after ten minutes consideration. However, since things might have been drifting against him, he decided to offer a draw himself, which was accepted.

Rudy chose the Dutch Leningrad reversed again, since he had met the same opponent, Dr Jurgen Fritsch at the EU Seniors teams in Dresden two years ago, losing that one despite having established what should have been a winning central pawn mass. All the more so since Bl had gone down the same route in Round 1 of this tournament. Trying for activity with a pawn break on e5, this lost the B on standing on f5. Wh could have just won a pawn on the K side. but there are styles in chess, so Rudy chose a line where Wh gathered material for his Q. Those materialists in the team reckoned that Bl's Q plus 3 K side pawns were equal to Wh's R, B, & N. However Rudy had judged that the Q was inactive on the Q side, a R unable to contest an e file, a passive Bl N & B. While Bl gobbled up two more pawns, Wh won an exchange and then the four Wh pieces around the K forced mate (even, to the team's satisfaction, in lines not played)

John had a good position from that English that became more a Catalan.When piled up the pressure up against d5 and Bl's underdeveloped Q side, Bl succumbed as one does in an inferior position, dropping two pieces for a R. Coupled with a passed d pawn, Wh's R, B & N soon forced a decision against the two passive rooks, giving John a win.

Given the state of the match, Iolo settled for a draw when John had won. His usual Old Indian had lead to a rather blocked position, in which, however, Bl had a protected passed pawn on c5. This might have been enough to win in the long run, but it seemed not completely necessary since Iolo had scored a good draw the previous round.

Wales 3 Germany Freibauern Niedersachsen 1

Although we finished on 24, seemingly only four places above our initial ranking of 28, a closer inspection is worth doing. We finished with one match more than last year. We are 1 match point behind England 1, England 2, and Belgium. We are level with the best performing Dutch team Netherlands VAS from Amsterdam, and 1 match point above Scotland 1. Thanks to beating Austria 1 in Rd1 we played teams ranked Nos 5,7,9,15,17 & 21, which finished in places 6,7,14,16,21, 27. Colin could have won against Michael Yeo, who ended up ranked No2 on % points in the whole tournament. Rudy had the best overall performance of the Welsh team being ranked No36 on % points(a default not counting either for him or Michael Yeo of England1).


A special mention should be made of Russia 2, composed of women players who only narrowly lost to Russia St Petersburg in the last round.

The final ceremony took place in the Rogaska Cultural Centre in the presence of its Major and MEP.

Rudy van Kemenade - Jurgen Fritsch 1-0