Olympiad

[Barry Sandercock]

In the final position in the Jones game, I see the engine on Chess24 says black is much better. Surely that is not right, maybe the computer just calculates the value of the pieces.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Computers can have "blind spots" like that in certain positions, even now.

[Martin Benjamin]

Fans of "never say die" in the "when to resign" debate will enjoy the Swaziland v Solomon Islands games. I have sympathy for the late resigner, but even the most diehard of "fight till it's over" supporters will be likely to admit that these chaps took it a little too far. I tend to check out the lower matches; they are much easier for me to understand as my ability declines and they give me hope of playing in the Olympiad one day if I ever migrate to the right country.

[Mick Norris]

Round 7 on 2014/08/09 at 14:00
No. SNo Team Team Pts. MP Res. : Res. MP Pts. Team Team SNo
1 13 CUB Cuba 18½ 11 : 11 18 Azerbaijan AZE 8
2 16 CZE Czech Republic 17½ 10 : 10 18 Russia RUS 1
3 14 NOR Norway 14½ 9 : 9 16½ Germany GER 12
4 29 SRB Serbia 17 10 : 10 17½ China CHN 7
5 18 BUL Bulgaria 16½ 10 : 10 17½ Netherlands NED 11
6 24 CRO Croatia 17½ 10 : 10 18 Romania ROU 32
7 4 ARM Armenia 17½ 10 : 10 17 Hungary HUN 5
8 3 FRA France 17½ 9 : 9 16 Georgia GEO 21
9 57 QAT Qatar 16 9 : 9 17½ India IND 19
10 6 USA United States of America 16½ 9 : 9 15½ Uzbekistan UZB 33
11 15 POL Poland 17 9 : 9 16½ Bosnia & Herzegovina BIH 42
12 49 KAZ Kazakhstan 15½ 9 : 9 17 Ukraine UKR 2
13 30 BRA Brazil 17½ 8 : 9 14½ Latvia LAT 23
14 37 CAN Canada 14 8 : 8 15½ England ENG 10

Canada have drawn with Israel & USA
http://chess-results.com/tnr140380.aspx ... =30&wi=821

[Mick Norris]

Bo. 39 England (ENG) Rtg - 92 Peru (PER) Rtg 3 : 1
31.1 IM Houska, Jovanka 2401 - WGM Cori T., Deysi 2422 ½ - ½
31.2 WIM Maroroa, Sue 2120 - Apaza, Flor 1552 ½ - ½
31.3 WIM Chevannes, Sabrina L 2171 - Bocangel Chavez, Marjoire J. 1731 1 - 0
31.4 WFM James, Ann-Marie 2095 - Apaza, Candida 0 1 - 0

Round 7:
24 39 ENG England 13½ 7 : 7 16 Australia AUS 51

[Chris Rice]

OK spin time.

Today was a setback for our Open Team and we are now languishing in 26th place. However, on the positive side we are only 2 match points behind Russia in 3rd place and our other tie-breaker scores are pretty good as well as long as we get back to winning matches which has to start with Canada.

On the individual boards we've got three contenders in the top 20 for Boards 1, 4 & 5.

On Board 1 Mickey Adams has 3/4 with a TPR so far of 2926
On Board 4 David Howell has 4/5 with a TPR of 2700
On Board 5 Matthew Sadler has 5/6 with a TPR of 2727

So all is not lost yet. By the way I think Andrew Greet of Scotland deserves a mention on his debut, he's on 4/5 averaging 2538.

Our women's team are pretty much placed where they are seeded so I guess their aim would be to finish above their seeding so good luck to them as well.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Good performance from Andrew so far. How likely is it that he'll become Cornwall's second grandmaster from this event?

[Chris Rice]

The Danish GM Jacob Aagard currently playing in Tromso has really got the hump with arbiters in a blog entitled "Zero tolerance for stupid arbiters". He had a few good words to say as well and I particular liked the following little story:

"Once, years ago, an opponent, after losing a drawn ending on time, informed me that my mother has an extra job I did not know about. I looked at the arbiter and asked if this was appropriate. He answered: “You won this ending! You have nothing to complain about.” He was right. Thank God for good arbiters!"

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/?p=3079#more-3079

[Mick Norris]

Bo. 37 Canada (CAN) Rtg - 10 England (ENG) Rtg

14.1 GM Kovalyov, Anton 2622 - GM Adams, Michael 2740
14.2 GM Hansen, Eric 2593 - GM Jones, Gawain C B 2665
14.3 GM Sambuev, Bator 2528 - GM Howell, David W L 2650
14.4 IM Hambleton, Aman 2458 - GM Sadler, Matthew D 2653

[Mick Norris]

Bo. 39 England (ENG) Rtg - 51 Australia (AUS) Rtg

24.1 IM Houska, Jovanka 2401 - WFM Nguyen, Thu Giang 2165
24.2 WIM Maroroa, Sue 2120 - WIM Guo, Emma 2044
24.3 Kalaiyalahan, Akshaya 2016 - WIM Dekic, Biljana N. 2048
24.4 WFM James, Ann-Marie 2095 - Yu, Sally 1953

[Roger de Coverly]

The Danish GM Jacob Aagard currently playing in Tromso has really got the hump with arbiters in a blog entitled "Zero tolerance for stupid arbiters".

He's absolutely right of course. One of the anonymous hatred sites had a defence of zero tolerance in an attempt to rubbish the Kasparov campaign.

[Mick Norris]

On the individual boards we've got three contenders in the top 20 for Boards 1, 4 & 5.

On Board 1 Mickey Adams has 3/4 with a TPR so far of 2926
On Board 4 David Howell has 4/5 with a TPR of 2700
On Board 5 Matthew Sadler has 5/6 with a TPR of 2727

From what I can see, we have Carlsen at 2931 playing white against Naiditsch today and Kasimdzhanov just behind Mickey at 2925, but those 3 are clear of everyone else on board 1

Board 4 has 6 players ahead of David at the moment

Board 5 has 5 players on 100% so hard to know what their TPR is until they fail to win a game, but Matthew has played at least 1 game more than all and is no worse than 6th - of course there are 5 rounds to go including today, but some of these players will have to play all 5 to be eligible for a prize (as the minimum is eight)

[benedgell]

Looks like David Howell is going to draw.

[Matthew Peat]

Can't see where any wins are going to come from today. Sadler appeared to have a good position before he decided to hand the bishop pair to Black while Adam's position just looks horrible.

[Matthew Peat]

Can't see where any wins are going to come from today. Sadler appeared to have a good position before he decided to hand the bishop pair to Black while Adam's position just looks horrible.

...which may just explain why Howell has decided to avoid the perpetual. However he has now left himself 10 mins for 20 moves.