Najer Leads European Championship With a Round to Go
Today (Saturday) was the final rest day for the participants in the European Individual Chess Championship, and tomorrow we'll have the finale. The tournament has seen several players take the lead, get caught and surpassed, and at this moment there's a new leader: Evgeniy Najer of Russia. While he's a very strong grandmaster whose rating has been as high as 2682, his current rating of 2634 makes him just the 37th seed. No matter: his score of 8/10 has him in clear first, half a point ahead of David Navara and Denis Khismatullin and a full point ahead of the next 15 players in the tournament table.
Najer has had a tournament of streaks: he won his first three games, drew the next four and has won his last three. If he wins tomorrow he wins the tournament outright, but he'll have a challenge with Black against Khismatullin. Navara has White against Ivan Cheparinov, so we're in store for an exciting finish.
Speaking of exciting, there have been many noteworthy games in this tournament, and I hope to show at least a small selection over the next few days. For now, let's see how the tournament ends, and remember that in addition to the prestige and prize fund for first there's the almost equally important task of finishing in the top 23, which earns a player an automatic invite to the next World Cup (and a guaranteed payday in that event).
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