With a gratitude to all our guests!
After two years of break (2020-21) 15th European Chess Solving Championship attracted 12 teams and 61 solvers from 14 countries; brought new names to the stage; promoted new generation; and broke some records.
The World champion from Rhodes 2021 Danila Pavlov convincingly defended his 2019 European title (and won the Open) far ahead of Piotr Murdzia and Tomaš Peitl. Nobody ever made a similar collection off titles before his 20th birthday! The key-rounds were endgames, more-movers and helpmates, where the ECSC director Ivan Denkovski placed the most difficult problems. At the end of the tensed team competition, the first four places were separated by 5 points only (from 205,25 to 200,25). The hero of the record breaking 6th title for Serbia was 17 years old Ilija Serafimović, who closely missed individual medal. Lithuania was leading up to the last round, but fell to 2nd place after helpmates. Slovakia made its historical success, with the team bronze, individual bronze for Tomaš Peitl, and gold for Marek Kolčak among seniors.Marina Putinceva won the women field being only 15, ahead of Laura Rogule and the debutant Denisa Bucur. The efforts of organizers to promote chess composition in Latvia were rewarded by the successes of Laura Rogule and 16 years old Emils Tabors, bronze medalist among juniors. Emils had the record gains of rating: +151 in ECSC and the Open! But the Youth marked Riga gathering in many more ways. You should have seen the results of Michał Koziorowicz and Kevinas Kuznecovas in Add-a-Piece competition; follow Mihnea Costachi analyzing his chess games (with Stefanova, Dubov and Firouzja); or join the 6 years old Ilya, a guest of Islande hotel, who was spending hours in front of the demo board, puling sleeves and asking participants to show him some chess problem…
See ECSC 2022: Prizegiving photo gallery (photos by Maksims Pučinskis)
