OLYMPIAD 2008 :):)

[Paul Runnacles]

Re Howell game vs Azerbaijan: I watched this game live and once David had made 40 moves I soon got nervous because his moves began to look rather aimless, as if he could not formulate a plan.
At any time if he wasn't clear how to proceed he could have bailed out to an advantageous but maybe not winning position e.g. 45 Rc7 - this would have more or less taken a loss out of the equation, guaranteed a draw and retained some winning chances.
By 47Kg1 (bewildering move) I was geting worried and soon afterwards the only progress David was making was backwards. As an experienced and talented GM, David should have been able to recognise that he didn't know how to win the game and that the match context demanded that he should not jeopardise the team's win. By the end, however, he just seems to have lost the plot - playing one bad move after another.

Nigel Short must be upset that his excellent win didn't get the team result that it deserved.

[Matthew Turner]

This is now on the ECF website, from Stewart REuben

"I was asked why Michael Adams was rested against the mighty Russians. I did not discuss the matter with Peter Wells our match captain, but I quite expected this. Michael had lost two games in a row and this gave him the opportunity to take two days to recover. We were never likely to do anything other than lose to Russia anyway and the particular score is not that important in this system. With 5 players it is normal to take some days off, though the young David Howell has yet to do so."

Why would you discuss it with the match captain? no point spoiling his holiday. It just seems very defeatist to me. Kramnik, turned out at the Olympiad, when he could have cried off after losing to Topalov. Perhaps we need more fighting spirit?

[Sean Hewitt]

Why would you discuss it with the match captain? no point spoiling his holiday.

Perhaps Stewart meant that he didn't discuss it with the match captain, because it was none of his [Stewart's] business. Once you appoint a captain, it's purely a matter for him and the player(s). Having two bosses only causes problems - look at the ECF.

[Ben Purton]

Hmmmmm Chairman can ask why at football teams, not tell to do. I hardly think asking why is a crime guys.

[Ian Kingston]

Does anyone know what the tie breaks are for teams level on match points? The official site doesn't appear to have the information, and the FIDE regulations still state 'Each teams [sic] place in the order of classification shall be decided by the number of game points it has scored' (http://www.fide.com/info/handbook?id=94&view=article).

[John Philpott]

Ian Kingston asked

Does anyone know what the tie breaks are for teams level on match points?

The tie break principle is as follows (which I tracked down on the FIDE website by the simple expedient of following a helpful link from the BCM website):

6. The position of teams that finish with the same number of match points shall be determined by the Sonnenborn-Berger system which is the sum of the match points of all opponents, excluding the opponent who scored the lowest number of match points, while each opponent's match score is multiplied by the team's game result against this opponent. The idea behind this new rule is to combine, in the first procedure of the tie breaking, both the strength of the opponents and the number of game points scored against each one of them. The more game points scored against stronger opponents, the better for the team. This way we also give the teams a substantial incentive to win as many game points as possible in each match and not to be satisfied with the minimal win of 2.5:1.5. The exclusion of the weakest opponent is made in order to neutralize the effect of non played matches on the final results.

7. If Sonnenborn-Berger does not break the tie, the next tie-breaking procedures are: (b = Buchholz) by the sum of the match scores of all the team's opponents, excluding the opponent who scored the lowest number of match points; and (c) by the sum of the game points scored.

[Ian Kingston]

Ian Kingston asked

Does anyone know what the tie breaks are for teams level on match points?

The tie break principle is as follows (which I tracked down on the FIDE website by the simple expedient of following a helpful link from the BCM website):

Thanks. The relevant page on the FIDE web site is http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... -olympiads if anybody wants to see all of the new rules.

I would have thought that the official site would carry the rules or that FIDE would have updated the Handbook (they've had almost a year).

[Ben Purton]

We have "beaten" Vietnam(Gawain cant lose). So what would you do tommorow. We are going to have a real tough tie tommorow. Can we "drop" anyone? I think if we do, its a bit poor if no player has requested it. I mean at the end of the day, if we do drop someone its purely because rotating players. Which I think should go out the window if we have medal chances, which we now do. You play your best 4. Howell and Short playing very very well. Short is on absoulute fire. Gawain has not lost a game yet!. And Adams has picked up since his debated rest. So we have to play them 4? Anyone disagree?

Ben

[John Philpott]

Ben Purton wrote

We have "beaten" Vietnam

The Olympiad site is currently showing the match result as 2-2 with Adams having lost. Given the position on the board after 71...a4 and the fact that Black had nearly 10 minutes left, can I hope that 1-0 is simply a misprint for 0-1? Or did Mickey have a mobile phone with him?

I am more optimistic that the former explanation will prove correct now that I have seen Kanwal's result shown as 1-0 despite being a queen down!

[Ian Kingston]

There's an equally bizarre looking result on Board 4 for the women's team - this time in England's favour.

[David Clayton]

I suspect the players (or officials) have put the kings on the wrong centre squares, it does happen. If it is wrong, it will need someone to spot it and then correct it.

David

[Mick Norris]

I presume Short has a good chance of winning a board 2 medal (his chess has certainly improved since he met me at Liverpool)

[Jonathan Rogers]

I agree with Ben that the top four should play again, though with the caveat that Gawain dropped a notch today, and may be tiring, which would hardly be surprising since he had just successfully played Black three days in a row against 2600+ opposition. But today he was allowed to play his favourite White opening, and got the sort of position that he has been winning in his sleep against 2500s for the last couple of years or so.

Unfortunately a tired Gawain is probably still better a better bet than a rested Conquest (indeed, by now Conquest has probably been rested too often to be effective). I do think that the selectors erred here, I am afraid; it seems to me that in the absence of a self-evident fifth choice they took the easy way out and chose the British Champion. That decision may have been relatively easy to explain, especially to those who would like to see some extra incentive for all our top players to play in the British; but I thought at the time that more weight should have been given to the fact that he has played in the Olympiad at least twice already and was relatively unsuccessful on those occasions too. There are stylistic issues as well. Stuart has a wonderful bohemian style, which is suited to winning some big tournaments, but he is really the last person whom you would want to play as a board four reserve against a fellow GM over 2500 with the request "please play a standard position as safely as you can and avoid losing at all costs". Stuart prefers not to play standard openings or even standard positions and does not really have an auto pilot mode to switch to when required. (That was part of his problem v Russia, though admittedly the strength of Jakovenko was a further problem).

[Mick Norris]

Who would you have picked instead of Conquest?

[Matthew Turner]

I think the selectors had very little choice in choosing Stewart. I felt Steven Gordon or even Simon Williams might have fared better at the Olympiad, but Stewart earnt his place fair and square. The fact is whoever was picked as no. 5 would be significantly weaker than an in form Gawain. The England team management are doing a good job of leaving Stewart to warm the bench.