The European Team Championship ended in an exciting fashion with the Azerbaijan team eking out a tie-breaking victory over Russia, which ended up in second place, with the Ukrainians in third (for complete standings: www.euroteams 2017.com/en/).

The Azeris got off to a slow start with just 1.5 points after three rounds, but then won five matches in a row, including a huge victory (3-1) over the Russians, which featured a brilliant game by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov over Alexander Grischuk.

Now all they had to do was avoid losing to the Ukrainians in the last round. They drew the match in a controversial fashion when, against the rules, the team captains agreed to draws on the last two boards. Sadly, in international chess, too many rules are broken.

Anyway, they almost miscalculated, when the Russians beat the Germans by a 3.5/4 score, allowing them to just win by the narrowest of tie-breaking margins.

Teams with good results included Croatia, ranked 14th going in but finishing in fourth; Romania, ranked 20th at the start, ended up in seventh.

Disappointing teams had to be the sixth-ranked Armenians ending up 12th, and the always underachieving, or so it seems, English team, ranked fourth but ended up 16th.

The international calendar now travels to the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, which is once again hosting a major event, the Championship Showdown, Nov. 9-14. The event is a set of four matches of 30 games each: 10 rapid and 20 blitz, with no time increments for either control, which means the pieces will be flying all over the place.

The matches are: World Champion Magnus Carlsen vs. Ding Liren; Hikaru Nakamura vs. Veselin Topalov; Fabiano Caruana vs. Alexander Grischuk; and Wesley So vs. Leinier Dominguez. And as always with the CCSCSL, the prize fund is very generous, with the winner of each match getting $60,000, the loser $40,000, and an event grand total of $400,000.

Coming events: Nov. 17, Waltham Brandeis November G/15 d3 (quick), at Brandeis University, WalthamChessClub.org/Schedule.html; Nov. 18, Concord-Carlisle Spiegel Cup Series Chess Tournament, Harvey Wheeler Community Center, 1276 Main St., Concord, ConcordCarlisleChess.org.

Recent results: Spiegel Cup Qualifier #2 (76 players): 14U; 1st: Vineeth Nareddy (on tie-break Joy Cao), 3.5/4, 11U, 1st: Rafael Pashkov (playoff winner), David Katsman 3.5-0.5; 8U. 1st: Isabella Lai, 4-0, 2nd: Sahit Kathika, 2-2;

Answer to today’s problem: From Lombardy–Kramer, 1958

1.Bc6! Qxa3 [if 1...Qxc6? 2.Qxf8+! Kxf8 3.Re8#; 1...Rdd8 2.Qxa6; 1...Bc8 2.Bxd7 Qxd7 3.Re7 wins] 2.Rxa3 wins material as Black’s bishop and rook are both attacked.

Chris Chase can be reached at BostonGlobeChessNotes@gmail.com.