The European Team Championships

After drawing their last two matches, Armenia narrowly clinched the gold medals ahead of Hungary and Germany. The English team, who won this event two years ago in Pula, had to settle for a humbling tenth place after drawing with the Netherlands in the final round.

Further details and annotated games click here:

Games and results at the official site: http://www.worldfide.com/batumi/

or at The Week in Chess: http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html

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New World Rankings

FIDE has now calculated their new world rankings based on results submitted up to December 3. The only noticeable movement at the top is Michael Adams advancing to the number five spot after picking up 27 since the July list.

World Top 10:

1.Garry Kasparov, Russia (2851)

2.Vishy Anand, India (2767)

3.Vladimir Kramnik, Russia (2756)

4.Alexander Morozevich, Russia (2746)

5.Michael Adams, England (2735)

6.Alexei Shirov, Spain (2729)

7.Boris Gelfand, Israel (2718)

8.Peter Leko, Hungary (2715)

9.Vassily Ivanchuk, Ukraine (2714)

10.Anatoly Karpov, Russia (2713).

The top 100 list is available at: http://www.worldfide.com/fide/html/top100men.html

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Ricardi by a Mile

Grandmaster Pablo Ricardi thoroughly outclassed the competition in this year's Argentine Championship. Winning the tournament with two and a half points to spare, Ricardi posted one of his strongest results ever.

Final standings: 1.Ricardi 10/13 2-4.Giaccio, Fiorito and Zarnicki 7.5 5-7.Panno, Sorin and Campora 7 8.Slipak 6.5 9-11.Spangenberg, Soppe and Hoffman 6 12-13.Dolezal and Rubinetti 4.5 14.Tempone 4.

Games and results at: http://roldan-casafus.com/

- Einar Gausel