European Individual Chess Championship Explained

The European Individual Chess Championship is a chess tournament organised by the European Chess Union. It was established in 2000 and has since then taken place on a yearly basis.Apart from determining the European champions (open and women's), another objective of this tournament is to determine a number of players who qualify for the FIDE World Cup and the FIDE Women's World Cup (formerly the knockout Women's World Championship).

Mode of play

The European Individual Championship consists of two separate tournaments, an open event and a women's event, held at different times of the year and hosted in different cities. Both are Swiss system tournaments, with a varying number of rounds. Historically, the only exception to this was the first Women's Championship tournament in 2000, which was held as a knockout tournament.

Apart from the first edition in 2000, where in case of a tie the Buchholz rating was used as a tie-breaker, rapid play playoff matches are used to determine the medal winners as well as the world championship qualifiers.

Controversy

There have been a number of controversies associated with the tournament:

• At most venues, participants and accompanying persons have been obliged to stay at the "official hotel", appointed by the local organizers. The room rates for participants, however, have been significantly higher than for other hotel guests. This in large part contributed to the founding of the ACP in 2003. Also the standard of the hotels as well as of the food has been a focus of complaints by players and journalists.
• As the European Championships are part of the FIDE World Championship cycle, starting with the 2001 edition, the new, faster FIDE time control was used. This led to many complaints by the participants about increased stress, incessant time trouble and a steep deterioration of the quality of the games.

Results (open)

Year	Venue		Gold	Silver	Bronze	Players/rounds
2000	Saint-Vincent, Italy					120 / 11
2001	Ohrid, Macedonia					203 / 13
2002	Batumi, Georgia					101 / 13
2003	Silivri, Turkey					207 / 13
2004	Antalya, Turkey					74 / 13
2005	Zegrze, Poland					229 / 13
2006	Kuşadası, Turkey					138 / 11
2007	Dresden, Germany					403 / 11
2008	Plovdiv, Bulgaria					323 / 11
2009	Budva, Montenegro					306 / 11
2010	Rijeka, Croatia					408 / 11
2011	Aix-les-Bains, France					393 / 11
2012	Plovdiv, Bulgaria					348 / 11
2013	Legnica, Poland					286 / 11
2014	Yerevan, Armenia					257 / 11
2015	Jerusalem, Israel					250 / 11
2016	Gjakova, Kosovo					245 / 11
2017	Minsk, Belarus					397 / 11
2018	Batumi, Georgia					302 / 11
2019	Skopje, North Macedonia					361 / 11
2021	Reykjavík, Iceland					180 / 11
2022	Brežice, Slovenia					317 / 11
2023	Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia					484 / 11
2024	TBA, Israel

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 European Championship in Podčetrtek, Slovenia was postponed to 2022.^[1]

Results (women)

Year	Venue		Gold	Silver	Bronze	Players/rounds
2000	Batumi, Georgia				32 / K.O.
2001	Warsaw, Poland				157 / 11
2002	Varna, Bulgaria				114 / 11
2003	Silivri, Turkey				113 / 11
2004	Dresden, Germany				108 / 12
2005	Chișinău, Moldova				164 / 12
2006	Kuşadası, Turkey				96 / 11
2007	Dresden, Germany				150 / 11
2008	Plovdiv, Bulgaria				157 / 11
2009	Saint Petersburg, Russia				168 / 11
2010	Rijeka, Croatia				158 / 11
2011	Tbilisi, Georgia				158 / 11
2012	Gaziantep, Turkey				103 / 11
2013	Belgrade, Serbia				169 / 11
2014	Plovdiv, Bulgaria				116 / 11
2015	Chakvi, Georgia				98 / 11
2016	Mamaia, Romania				112 / 11
2017	Riga, Latvia				144 / 11
2018	Vysoké Tatry, Slovakia				144 / 11
2019	Antalya, Turkey				130 / 11
2021	Iași, Romania				117 / 11
2022	Prague, Czech Republic				123 / 11
2023	Petrovac, Montenegro				136 / 11
2024	Rhodes, Greece				182 / 10

See also

• 1942 European Individual Chess Championship
• EU Individual Open Chess Championship
• European Senior Chess Championship
• European Junior Chess Championship
• European Youth Chess Championship
• European Team Chess Championship

External links

For complete tables / results, refer to The Week in Chess website:

• 2000: Men's results (1–60 places only) Women's results Women's final match
• 2000: Men's complete results Russchess.com
• 2001: Men's results Women's results
• 2002: Men's results Women's results
• 2003: Men's and Women´s results
• 2004: Men's results Women's results
• 2005: Men's results Women's results
• 2006: Men's and Women's results
• 2007: Men's results
• 2008: Men's and Women's results

Notes and References

1. Web site: EICC 2020 – European Individual Chess Championship 2020. 2020-11-20. en-US. 5 December 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20211205223522/https://eicc2020.eu/. dead.