World Deaf Team Championships

[benedgell]

http://www.wdtc2014.org/

http://www.zng111.hr/deaf2014/d1/

has the England games from round 1 where they drew 2-2 with Croatia. Round 2 they're up against Switzerland.

http://chess-results.com/tnr135006.aspx?lan=1

[Roger de Coverly]

has the England games from round 1 where they drew 2-2 with Croatia.

Nice piece of hackery by Chris K on board 3 !

[Alasdair MacLeod]

Thanks Ben, I was intending to start a thread on this event this afternoon but you beat me to it!

ICCD Olympiad, World Deaf Team Championship, 18-28 June 2014, Opatija, Croatia

1st round

The England Deaf team, seeded 10th out of 18 teams, got off to great start by holding the number 1 seeds, Croatia, to a 2-2 draw in the 1st round! Croatia left out their top player GM Zlatko Klaric (ELO 2415) for this match, where I assume this is because he is the main organiser of this tournament so he must already be exhausted (!)

Well done to Lewis Martin on beating Goran Cehic (ELO 2173) on board 1 and Christopher Kreuzer who beat Toni Vujcic (ELO 2162) on board 3. Forumites 2 Non-Forumites 0 It shows that you don't need a coach to achieve a result like this, as our players have been preparing for this tournament on their own.

As indicated by Ben, the England-Croatia match was on the live games page - unfortunately I did not know there were live games until I saw a link to them about half an hour after the final result came up! They won't be on the live boards for the 2nd round but if they can string together a couple of match wins in a row then they can appear there again.

Tournament website http://www.wdtc2014.org/

Live games page http://zng111.hr/deaf2014/

1st round results http://chess-results.com/tnr135006.aspx ... =30&wi=821

In the 2nd round, which has just started, England are up against Switzerland.

Alasdair MacLeod,
EDCA Committee member (ex-Secretary!)

[Alasdair MacLeod]

has the England games from round 1 where they drew 2-2 with Croatia.

Nice piece of hackery by Chris K on board 3 !

Yes, just like all those times I have sat next to him wondering what is going on in his game, I did the same sat here at home. How speculative was it, sacrificing his knight for a pawn along with forcing the black king to walk up to e5? It will be interesting to read his comments about that game - I am sure he will write something here at some point Definitely one to go through with a chess engine at hand.

Lewis's game was nice, where he was on the white side of the French Exchange, breathing some life into a dull opening with 34.f5! breaking through, where the open e and f files along with the activity of the white rooks and knight against the passive black rooks and knight, proved decisive. It was instructive to see how the position transformed suddenly in just 8 moves from move 34 to the end!

[Stephen Saunders]

Wow, Phil Gardner is still playing? Good for him. He was board no 1 when I played for the team in Veszprem back in 1990....

[Alasdair MacLeod]

2nd round

Switzerland 1½-2½ England

Another well done to Chris Kreuzer who scored the decisive win on board 4 and is on 2/2 while Lewis Martin, Neil Dunlop and Ilan Dwek drew their games on boards 1, 2 and 3.

One thing to note - it is match points first then game points so the standings on the chess-results.com site is wrong [EDIT: it has now been corrected!] where it thinks it is the other way round. As you can see from the 3rd round pairings, it is obviously match points that takes precedence over game points as specified on the ICCD regulations. It used to be game points up until 2006 but then changed to match points in 2010.

In the 3rd round England face Germany and it looks like they will be on the live boards . However, I am taking my kids to their swimming lessons in the afternoon so hopefully the players can stretch their games out into the early evening for my benefit!

[Alasdair MacLeod]

Wow, Phil Gardner is still playing? Good for him. He was board no 1 when I played for the team in Veszprem back in 1990....

Hello Stephen, we haven't met as I joined the deaf chess world after you left but I do know your name well from both you being in the England team in 1990 and the EDCA Congresses you participated in. Any chance of a comeback from you, we always welcome back ex-EDCA members!

About Phil, yes he is still playing and has to juggle playing along with his ICCD Vice President duties. He played for Great Britain in 1986 and for England in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 and now 2014! Three times was enough for me in 2002, 2006 and 2010

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Hello from Opatija! As Alasdair said, we will be live as the second pairings tomorrow. Still not sure if my round 1 sacrifice was sound or not, but it was fun to play. We are aiming to do better than the England football team...

[Roger de Coverly]

Still not sure if my round 1 sacrifice was sound or not, but it was fun to play.

On a fairly superficial engine check, it was sound in the sense that Black is only marginally better after the sacrifice. According to the engine, the boring a3 gives White an advantage of around two-thirds of a pawn, but the sacrifice changes that to a Black advantage of one-third of a pawn. Where Black goes wrong is later where he should bale out at move 20 or 21, either by not retaking on d7 playing Nxe3 instead, or else by leaving the Knight on d5 to its fate after c4. The monster error was when he took on e5, allowing the Re2 pin. Something like 23. .. Ra8 or 23. .. g5 was to be preferred where it's assessed that White is again about two-thirds of a pawn better despite being an actual pawn up.

They've left the live games on the server, so going back to the first link gives the play through of what actually happened.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thanks Roger. Much appreciated. I must confess I had not seen as far as Bxd7 when playing the sacrifice. I had tried to analyse various moves after Kxe5 and nothing was working until I realised doubling my rooks left Black in a bind and having to choose between charging further forward with the king (Kxe4) or retreating with the king (Ke6). At that point I decided to play the sacrifice and see what happened. He played the latter move and I had to start calculating again. Luckily I seem to have found the best follow up. Psychologically my opponent may have been affected by the unexpected forced king sortie so may not have been in the best frame of mind to put up the best defence.

[Stephen Saunders]

Hello Stephen, we haven't met as I joined the deaf chess world after you left but I do know your name well from both you being in the England team in 1990 and the EDCA Congresses you participated in. Any chance of a comeback from you, we always welcome back ex-EDCA members!

Hello Alasdair, I'm afraid a comeback is unlikely. I stopped playing otb back in 2003 when I realised my health problems meant I couldn't fully concentrate at the board for long any more. I do still play online at Gameknot, but it's not the same of course. I may yet turn up at an EDCA event as a spectator though!

Phil was always a big strong guy and it should be no surprise to me that he's still hacking away. Do give him, and Ilan, my warmest regards, when you see them. I'll be cheering them on for this tournament!

[Alasdair MacLeod]

3rd round

England ½ - 3½ Germany

In the match against the 5th seeds, we were well beaten by stronger players on the day and I am sure the team were disappointed with the result. The only bright spot was Lewis' draw on board 1 against IM Sergey Salov (ELO 2264). Lewis was clearly better around 25 moves into the game but went wrong somewhere, probably on the 30th move. At the end he had a slightly worse position but Sergey agreed a draw presumably because he was short of time.

The games played today can be found on this link: http://www.zng111.hr/deaf2014/d3/

In the 4th round, England play against Israel, the 13th seeds, who have the luxury of having GM Yehuda Gruenfeld on board 1.

Finally, I would like to add that if you are on Facebook, you can see some photos and video clips thanks to Barry David and Ilan Dwek. If you search for "English Deaf Chess Association" on Facebook, you will be able to see those photos and video clips.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

3-1 win vs Israel in round 4. We play Ukraine tomorrow morning in the first of two rounds that day. Am posting from a coach taking us on a tour to Pula. Gorgeous Istrian scenery but a long journey there. Signs also up around town for the European Bridge championships that started yesterday I think. There was also a visit yesterday from the President of Georgia (I think) - must be a chess player?

[Mick Norris]

Sounds great - enjoy and good luck

[David Sedgwick]

Signs also up around town for the European Bridge championships that started yesterday I think.

http://www.eurobridge.org/52nd-ebl-team ... ships.aspx

There was also a visit yesterday from the President of Georgia (I think) - must be a chess player?

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... orgia.html