It's a good exercise to compare chess as a sport in these country, counter part to their soccer achievement. We missed Magnus Carlsen as Norway is not an Euro 2012 team. Missed also, Bulgaria with Veselin Topalov and Armenia's Levon Aronian as member of top ten chess player.
Here the full line up of fantasy chess based on Euro 2012 football championship.
Group A
The line up quite reflected the real Euro soccer team strength. Russia is the highest here with all star team, with elo at 2770, similar to their soccer team. But by the time of writing, Russia already sent off with 0-1 knock off by Greece. Poland as the home team also suffered the same. So the team of Czech with David Navara and surprisingly Greece will proceed. The only highlight of this group is pairing of David Navara vs Vladimir Kramnik.
Poland Avg Rating = 2662.75 -- eliminated
Radoslaw Wojtaszek 2717
Mateusz Bartel 2677
Bartosz Socko 2635
Milton Kamil 2622
Russia 2770.2 -- eliminated
Vladimir Kramnik 2801
Sergey Karjakin 2779
Alexander Morozevich 2769
Alexander Grischuk 2761
Peter Svidler 2741
Czech Republic 2654.5
David Navara 2706
Viktor Laznicka 2693
Zbynek Hracek 2624
Jiri Stocek 2595
Greece 2607.5
Hristos Banikas 2626
Dimitrios Mastrovasilis 2612
Ioannis Papaioannou 2597
Vasilios Kotronias 2595
Group B
The group of hell in soccer, but not really in chess fantasy. Highest here is Germany, which is a country with all around high in sports. But the anomaly here is Portugal, which is a great soccer team but very low rating in chess. Netherland is also very all around in both soccer and chess and full of talents, but they were went bad in Euro and straight away sent home after just two game. Denmark on other hand very similar to their soccer team which is a dark horse that produced surprised result. Germany team vs Netherland is very good pairing here.
Germany 2664.5
Arkadij Naiditsch 2698
Igor Khenkin 2670
Daniel Fridman 2653
Georg Meier 2637
Netherland 2645.8 -- eliminated
Anish Giri 2693
Loek van Wely 2682
Sergei Tiviakov 2656
Daniel Stellwagen 2630
Erwin L'Ami 2605
Jan Timman 2575
Ivan Sokolov 2680
Denmark 2608.75
Peter Heine Nielsen 2665
Curt Hansen 2619
Sune Berg Hansen 2577
Lars Bo Hansen 2574
Portugal 2474.25
Antonio Antunes 2496
Luis Galego 2481
Diogo Fernando 2466
Paulo Dias 2454
Group C
Spain dominated the elo rating by 15 points. Compared to Ireland which is the elo lowest rating team here, same to their soccer team which is already sent home in two games. Italy come with all young guns team, Caruana is the highest rating here with his 2770 rating. Croatia is at modest 2600 rating and come with very experience team.
Spain 2619.5
Francisco Vallejo Pons 2697
Ivan Salgado Lopez 2623
Oleg Korneev 2586
Manuel Perez Candelario 2572
Italy 2606.5
Fabiano Caruana 2770
Sabino Brunello 2592
Daniele Vocaturo 2543
Michele Godena 2521
Croatia 2600.75
Ivan Saric 2632
Hrvoje Stevic 2601
Zdenko Kozul 2593
Davor Rogic 2577
Ireland 2461.75 -- elimanated
Alexander Baburin 2537
Brian Kelly 2480
Sam Collins 2428
Alex Lopez 2402
Group D
Actually the real group of hell in our fantasy chess Euro. Ukraine come with all 2700+ team, similar to Russian. They are challenged by England and France, with Sweden as the last dark horse here. In soccer as the time of writing, all teams still top their chances to go round 2 except Sweden. Ivanchuk vs Adams and Ponomariov vs Short are some of high pairing here.
Ukraine 2719.6
Vassily Ivanchuk 2764
Ruslan Ponomariov 2726
Alexander Moissenko 2711
Andrei Volokitin 2704
Pavel Eljanov 2693
England 2699
Michael Adams 2728
Luke McShane 2706
Nigel Short 2705
Gawain Jones 2657
France 2690.5
Laurent Fressinet 2715
Etienne Bacrot 2695
Maxime Vachier Lagrave 2680
Christian Bauer 2672
Sweden 2594.5 -- eliminated
Evgenij Agrest 2614
Ferdinand Hellers 2599
Emanuel Berg 2587
Tiger Hillarp Persson 2578
So, it's still left Ukraine as the all 2700 team here, let's see how this can be reflected in soccer. While Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany is the real favorite in Euro 2012. Will update this.
