Following the trend of developing online chess, the AIDEF – Francophone Chess Association – organized the first edition of the «Coupe d’échecs en ligne par équipes de la Francophonie».
This tournament with the time control of 15 minutes + 5 seconds, run from May 15-16, attracted 30 amateur teams from four continents, selected by their federations. In order to participate, every team had to be affiliated with AIDEF and include at least one female player, one player below 2000 ELO and three players below 1800 ELO.
The competition took place on Tornelo gaming platform under the supervision of international arbiter Laurent Freyd (France), assisted by arbiters Zoheir Slami (Morocco), Pierre Denommee (Canada), Mario Kran (Ivory Coast) and Timothé Scaillet (Belgium).
On the first day, the event fell a little behind the original schedule due to some technical problems, but eventually, it kicked off to a great start.
After the first day of the competition, Albania grabbed the lead winning all five matches. However team Moldova leapfrogged Albania on the second day in Round 10, going to the final round as a clear leader. The Moldovans had a seemingly firm grip on the situation, but unfortunately for them, the team lost the final match against Canada, which allowed Albania to come out on top.
After all the games were analyzed and verified by the fair play commission the final results were announced:
1. Albania – 18 points (+9 -2)
2. Moldova – 17 (+8 =1 -2)
3. Canada – 16 (+6 =4 -1)
Congratulations to the winning team which consisted of four young players:
1. WCM Shuqja, Klean (15 years old) 6.5 points / 11
2. Xhembulla, Aleksander (15 years old) 7.5 points /11
3. Ramaj, Ergit (13 years old) 4 points /11
4. Boci, Petro (17 years old) 9.5 points / 11
The winners will receive a medal and a copy of the album “Chess in Art” https://chessinart.com and a commemorative trophy provided by the Albanian Chess Federation.
The awards ceremony, medals and trophies will be in presented during the closing dinner of the 8th edition of the “Rencontres Internationales des Echecs Francophones” at the end of 2021.
All the results and the complete ranking were published on Chess-results: https://chess-results.com/tnr558897.aspx?lan=1&art=0&rd=11
The Francophone Chess Association thanks all the players, the captains and the arbiters for their participation and invites you for the “Championnat d’échecs en ligne par équipes de la Francophonie” which will be reserved for national teams with no ELO limit.
Text: Patrick VAN HOOLANDT, AIDEF president
Official website: https://aidef-tournois-en-ligne.com/
