2012 European Club Championship

The 2012 European Club Championship began yesterday evening in Eilat, Israel. Although the numbers are down this year (possibly due to travel distances from western Europe), it is as usual, very strong. The top seeded team, SOCAR, has an average rating of 2747, while 4 other teams average 2700+.
At the other end are the weaker teams but even then, a team like White Rose (29th seed) is still 2260.
As it is a short event (7 rounds only), the pairings have been accelerated, meaning that round 1 saw a couple of tougher than usual match ups. This was evident in the board 1 match, where SOCAR lost to 9th seeded Ashdod 2.5-3.5. The key game from that match was the following exciting effort.


Volokitin,Andrei (2724) - Mamedyarov,Shakhriyar (2748) [B94]
28th European Club Cup Eilat (1.1), 11.10.2012