Matthias Bluebaum Wins 2022 European Championship

GM Matthias Bluebaum won the 2022 European Championship in Terme Catez, Slovenia on Wednesday. The German grandmaster edged out GM Gabriel Sargissian on tiebreak. Bronze went to the 2018 champion, GM Ivan Saric, of Croatia. The top 20 players qualified for the 2023 FIDE World Cup.

The coronavirus pandemic obviously hasn’t come to an end just yet, but it’s having much less of an impact this year in Europe. Large chess events can now be held again reasonably normally, such as the Reykjavik Open which started yesterday, and the European Championship, which finished also yesterday.

Held for the first time in Slovenia, this European individual saw 317 players from 39 countries coming together at the Terme Catez spa complex in Brezice (east Slovenia), along the border of Croatia and just 30 km from Zagreb. No fewer than 114 players are holding the grandmaster title.

According to the official reporting, a few players tested positive before starting their tournament. From the results of the games, it can be deduced that two players never played any games and one player missed the first round but then stopped his tournament after his second round. With such a big field, these numbers could have been worse!

Many of the participants had one clear goal: to finish among the top 20 players, which would mean qualification for the 2023 World Cup. Among the group who managed were the relatively unknown Azerbaijani players IM Abdulla Gadimbayli and GM Misratdin Iskandarov, but also the veteran GM Zdenko Kozul, the winner of the European Championship in 2006.

GMs Aleksandar Indjic (Serbia) and Haik Martirosyan (Armenia) finished 21st and 22nd on tiebreak but qualified anyway since Bluebaum and GM Mustafa Yilmaz (Turkey) had already qualified from the 2021 European Championship.

The change from 20 qualifiers instead of 23 was made at the European Chess Union’s board meeting which took place in Thessaloniki, Greece in early February 2022. Due to the many pandemic postponements, it was decided that the qualification pathway of the European Championships for the open and women’s competitions were changed to a three-year cycle. Also in 2023, the European individual will provide 20 spots.

European Championship 2022 | Final Standings (Top 30)

Rk.	SNo	Fed	Title	Name	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	Rp	rtg+/-
1	20		GM	Bluebaum, Matthias	2642	8.5	2594	69,0	74,0	2785	20,4
2	7		GM	Sargissian, Gabriel	2681	8.5	2578	72,5	77,5	2772	13,1
3	4		GM	Saric, Ivan	2687	8.0	2589	73,0	78,5	2742	8,2
4	9		GM	Cheparinov, Ivan	2672	8.0	2585	69,5	74,0	2742	9,7
5	17		GM	Santos, Latasa Jaime	2648	8.0	2546	70,5	76,5	2705	8,0
6	35		GM	Yilmaz, Mustafa	2624	8.0	2530	64,0	69,0	2688	9,5
7	26		GM	Ponomariov, Ruslan	2636	8.0	2523	59,5	64,5	2680	6,4
8	32		GM	Durarbayli, Vasif	2628	8.0	2509	67,0	73,0	2669	5,9
9	131		IM	Gadimbayli, Abdulla	2451	7.5	2637	70,0	74,0	2717	39,9
10	65		GM	Iskandarov, Misratdin	2577	7.5	2631	73,5	79,0	2731	23,8
11	12		GM	Guseinov, Gadir	2661	7.5	2589	69,5	74,5	2703	6,7
12	29		GM	Ter-Sahakyan, Samvel	2632	7.5	2567	70,0	75,0	2681	7,8
13	22		GM	Sargsyan, Shant	2639	7.5	2567	65,5	71,0	2682	6,7
14	102		GM	Kobo, Ori	2510	7.5	2564	67,5	71,5	2655	23,9
15	31		GM	Moussard, Jules	2630	7.5	2558	67,5	72,5	2672	6,9
16	14		GM	Tari, Aryan	2653	7.5	2553	65,0	70,0	2670	3,1
17	3		GM	Anton Guijarro, David	2694	7.5	2551	67,0	71,0	2660	-3,0
18	21		GM	Kuzubov, Yuriy	2639	7.5	2547	70,0	74,5	2657	3,3
19	37		GM	Kozul, Zdenko	2619	7.5	2545	65,5	71,0	2659	6,9
20	93		GM	Nesterov, Arseniy	2522	7.5	2540	67,0	70,5	2641	18,8
21	44		GM	Indjic, Aleksandar	2605	7.5	2536	66,0	71,0	2647	7,6
22	28		GM	Martirosyan, Haik M.	2633	7.5	2531	67,0	73,0	2648	3,0
23	43		GM	Bernadskiy, Vitaliy	2606	7.5	2530	68,0	72,5	2644	6,6
24	18		GM	Ragger, Markus	2647	7.5	2521	65,0	69,0	2629	-0,8
25	34		GM	Lagarde, Maxime	2626	7.5	2518	65,0	69,5	2624	2,1
26	30		GM	Abasov, Nijat	2630	7.5	2518	64,5	69,0	2636	1,6
27	23		GM	Petrosyan, Manuel	2637	7.5	2518	63,0	68,5	2637	1,2
28	38		GM	Bartel, Mateusz	2616	7.5	2502	63,0	68,0	2620	1,2
29	51		GM	Iturrizaga Bonelli, Eduardo	2594	7.5	2496	62,0	67,5	2611	3,4
30	41		GM	Brkic, Ante	2607	7.5	2483	61,5	66,0	2602	0,1

Big names who failed to make the cut were the top two seeds, GM David Navara (Czech Republic) and GM Anton Korobov (Ukraine), but also e.g. GM Markus Ragger (Austria), and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Germany).

The way Bluebaum collected his 8.5 points over the 11 rounds was remarkable. After a draw in the first round, he won six(!) games in a row but then slowed down again. With four draws at the end, he remained at the top and even had the slightly better tiebreak.

Arguably his most interesting game was against the local GM Matej Sebenik:

Congratulations to Matthias, Bluebaum (GER) European #Chess Champion 2022, Gabriel Sargissian (ARM) wins the silver medal and Ivan Saric (CRO) the bronze medal! 26 norms have been achieved in the European Chess Championship 2022. @ECUonline pic.twitter.com/2W9z7x1YWI

— Τheodoros Tsorbatzoglou (@teotsorb) April 7, 2022

The European Individual Chess Championship took place March 27-April 6,2022 in Terme Catez, Slovenia. The format was an 11-round Swiss. The time control was 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with a 30-second increment per move starting from move one. You can find all games for replay here.

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