The European Individual Chess Championship is a chess tournament organised by the European Chess Union. It was established in 2000 and has since then taken place on a yearly basis. Apart from determining the European champions (open and women's), another objective of this tournament is to determine a number of players who qualify for the FIDE World Cup and the knockout Women's World Championship.
The event consists of two separate tournaments; an open event, and a women's event. Female players may participate in the open section. Both are a Swiss system tournament, with a varying number of rounds. Historically, the only exception to this was the first Women's Championship tournament in 2000, which was held as a knockout tournament. In 2002, Judit Polgár narrowly missed out on the bronze medal in the open competition by losing a playoff match against Zurab Azmaiparashvili. In 2011, Polgár won the bronze medal in the open competition at Aix-les-Bains, France.
Apart from the first edition in 2000, where in case of a tie the Buchholz rating was used as a tie-breaker, rapid play playoff matches are used to determine the medal winners as well as the world championship qualifiers.
There have been a number of controversies associated with the tournament:
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 European Championship in Podčetrtek, Slovenia was postponed to 2022.[5]
For complete tables / results, refer to The Week in Chess website: