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)

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.