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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
1 August 2023
For more information about chess for over-50s, please see our Seniors calendar and our Seniors introduction page.
As expected, the Slovak 65+ and England 50+ teams won their last round matches to ensure victory in the European Senior Team Championships which were played last month in the Polish city of Swidnica, Silesia.
The main interest in the final round was in the 50+ championship where the direct encounter between England-1 and Slovakia saw English wins on board 1 and 2, a Slovak win on board 3 and a draw on board 4.
So the positions in the two championships were symmetrical. The silver medals in the 50+ went to the Slovaks and to the English in the 65+, which was effectively decided in round 3 by an endgame blunder in just one game. There were insufficient strong teams entered to offer hope of recovery from a bad result.
England enjoyed further consolation successes in that England-2 took bronze in the 50+ championship (with 14MP) thanks to a 3-1 win in the final round against the Danes. England Women took the female title after a narrow victory over Lithuania women; they were overall 5th of the ten teams with the same match points as the fourth-placed Danes.
Scotland finished 6th with 7MP after a last-round win, while England-3 drew their last match to finish with 5MP which placed them 8th.
In the 65+ Championship, the other British teams finished as follows. England-2 finished on 10 match points which placed them 8th of the 18 teams. England-3 finished 14th with 8MP and Wales Cymru were 15th with 7MP. The 65+ women's title went to Germany, the only all-female team in that competition.
You can find team lists and results in the 50+ at this new link; the 65+ can be reached from there on a separate tab. There was also an official tournament home page which provided links to live games each day.
Readers may like to visit Beau Chess, the blog of Tim Spanton who was playing for England-3 in the 65+ and provided daily reports on their progress including his own games. His latest report there is on his performance in the British 65+ Championships.
The next team event for Seniors will be the 31st annual German regional competition, to be held at Böblingen from 13-19 August. (See the German Senior tournaments calendar for details.)
The next international team event will be the World Senior Team Championships at Struga, North Macedonia, for which we refer you to our calendar page. There we can expect a big fight for the 50+ gold medals between England (for whom GM Michael Adams will be playing), the USA who customarily field an all-GM team, and probably strong teams from Germany, Slovakia etc.
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Go to Seniors calendar page