Murzin's Swindle Keeps Bayegan Pendik Clear After a Top-Board Loss

The favorites kept cruising in round two of the European Chess Club Cup, with GMs Wei Yi, Arjun Erigaisi and Richard Rapport among the stars to reach 2/2. The one real scare came for the top seed, and it needed a rescue act to avoid becoming a story.

Bayegan Pendik survives its own rotation

Top seed Bayegan Pendik Chess Sports Club again rested GMs Anish Giri and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus. That nearly backfired when team leader GM Amin Tabatabaei lost on top board to GM Temur Kuybokarov.

GM Volodar Murzin then looked headed for a second loss, but pulled off what Chess.com called an incredible swindle in a lost position to beat Marko Ivanovic. The result gave Bayegan Pendik a 5-1 win.

Resting two of your strongest players in round two is a calculated bet that depth will carry the early rounds, as it did on day one (see our round one report). A top-board defeat plus a near-second loss suggests the margin for that kind of rotation is thinner than the final score makes it look.

Wei Yi’s sharp finish

Wei Yi scored a sparkling win over IM Hilmir Freyr Heimisson, setting Alkaloid on the way to a 6-0 victory over Icelandic side Breidabrik Chess Club A-Team. White’s 17.f5? was a mistake in a promising position. After 17…Nb4! 18.Rg1? Wei pounced with a killer blow.

The mismatches continued elsewhere. None of the top-12 matches was decided by less than a two-point margin.

The first upset came at table 17

You had to go to the 17th table, just off the live boards, to find the first match upset. Danish 45th seed Hillerod Skakklub, led by GM Sune Berg Hansen, beat Dutch 17th seed LSG 3.5-2.5. LSG was led by GM Jan Smeets.

Gaps of 28 seeds are large, but club events with six boards and uneven lineups leave room for one or two off days to swing a match.

Women’s event: two big clashes already

The European Women’s Chess Club Cup already produced major meetings. Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo beat fifth seed Odlar Yurdu, with big wins from IM Stavroula Tsolakidou and GM Koneru Humpy.

Third seed SuperChess Romania escaped with a 2-2 tie against eighth seed Club Ajedrez Linares. WFM Viviana Galvan at one point missed a mate in three in a crazy finish to a 121-move draw against IM Deimante Daulyte-Cornette.

The Finnish clubs

Two of the three Finnish clubs in the Open bounced back from their opening defeats. Etelä-Vantaan Shakki beat the Norwegian club SK1911 4-2, and Aatos swept St Benildus 6-0. Gambiitti lost 4-2 to SK Rockaden’s second team.

In round three, Etelä-Vantaa face FC St. Pauli 1910, Aatos meet SC Erlangen and Gambiitti play S.S. Lazio Scacchi.

Round three is on Monday, October 19, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.