Everything is ready for the 34th European Club Cup and the 23rd European Women Club Cup which will take place from 11th-19th October in Porto Carras, famous seaside resort in Halkidiki, Greece.

The playing venue of the Championships will be the Congress Center of the Porto Carras Grand Resort and the official hotel of the event will be 5 stars hotel Sithonia.

There are 73 Chess clubs, with players coming from 47 European federations, registered for the event, 61 for the Open section and 12 for the Women section.

As usual, the event will gather many famous chess names, among whom are 18 Grandmasters rated over 2700! This year, the spectators will have a chance to watch the World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen (NOR, 2839) who will represent Valerenga Chess Club.

Besides Magnus, in the European Club Cup will participate world #3 Mamedyarov Shakriyar (AZE, 2820) who will represent Odlar Yurdu Chess Club, world #4 Ding Liren (CHN, 2804) and world #12 Yu Yangyi (CHN, 2765) who will play for Alkaloid Chess Club, Peter Svidler (RUS, 2756) who will play for Russian Mednyi Vsadnik Saint Petersburg Chess Club, Jakovenko Dmitry (RUS, 2752) who will play for Alkaloid and many others world  top Grandmasters.

Starting rank list – Open section

In Women section, the field is led by the Nona Chess Club from Georgia who will try to defend the title of European Women Chess Club Winner in 2017, Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo and Caissa Italia Pentole Agnelli.

Among the list of participants there are the best women chess players of Europe and world chess scene, such as: Muzychuk Anna (UKR, 2555) who will be playing for the European Club Cup winner in 2016- Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo, Muzychuk Maria (UKR, 2533) who will represent Kyiv Chess Federation club, Gunina Valentina (RUS, 2525) and Paethz Elisabeth (GER, 2513) who will play for Caissa Italia Pentole Agnelli chess club, Dzagnidze Nana (GEO, 2509) who will represent Nona chess club and many others top women players, among whom are 22 of them rated over 2400!

Starting rank list – Women section

The event will officially start tomorrow with the Opening Ceremony, while the first round will take place on 12th October at 15:00 (local time).

LIVE transmission of all games together with the live commentary which will be done by the very entertaining Greek Grandmaster Ioannis Papaioannou can be followed through the Official Website of the Championship.

The Championships will be held in 7 rounds, played in the Swiss system in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules with time control 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. Draw offers before the 30th move made by black are strictly forbidden and violating the draw offering rule will be punished.

The total prize fund of the event will be 40.000 EUR with 22.000 EUR reserved for the Men’s competition and 13.000 EUR reserved for the Women’s competition. The rest of 5.000 EUR will be distributed to the best individual players with the best board results. The first three teams of each category will receive cups and medals.

Official website of the Club Cup