Olympiad

[MartinCarpenter]

Just playing sane chess I think Not known for sharp experiments with black.

Aagaard seems to be in a brave mood.

[Matthew Peat]

Adams has played the Slav a couple of times in this tournament. The surprise is that he played 5..e6 after which leads (if White wants) to a position where Black is very solid but has few if any winning chances. No criticism intended but as his opponent is nearly 200 Elo points lower I would have expected Adams to go for his normal stuff, especially as he is likely to lose his lead in the Board 1 medal table after what seems like an inevitable draw.

I suspect he would have rather had a rest today but that wasn't an option with Short having another enforced day off for the elections.

[MartinCarpenter]

He's always got the option of imitating Magnus and grinding away

If I was going to worry about our openings this tournament, I'd worry about how little we've often seemed to get with white. My impression was that we were doing quite well with black before that last round.

[Matthew Peat]

Not sure how much you can grind in the position that Adams has got.....Hope to be eating my words in a couple of hours.

I like the way that Howell has adopted the set-up that his opponent yesterday used against him

[Lewis Martin]

This is round 9, why are there so many draws on the top boards?

[David Gilbert]

Wow! Did David Howell really spend 42 minutes on move 14. bxc4?

[Graham Borrowdale]

This is round 9, why are there so many draws on the top boards?

The same reason there are close matches in the later stages of the football World Cup (Germany-Brazil aside) : the teams are more closely matched, and there is more to lose.

[John Moore]

David Howell has somehow survived - his opponent missed at least one clear win.

[Mick Norris]

David Howell has somehow survived - his opponent missed at least one clear win.

He isn't an easy player to watch

[Andy Stoker]

I admire Nigel Short's play. I do not comment on his other qualities.

Unfortunately we now have an echo of that 1970s joke - a reader writes in response to the magazine's quiz: "Your quiz posed the question: 'what is taken to the FA Cup Final and never used?' It gave the answer 'The ribbons of the losing team - which are not fastened to the cup at the end of the game'. The answer should have been 'Malcolm Macdonald'." http://www.arsenal.com/history/profiles ... -macdonald

[John Moore]

Mickey's ending is, one imagines, drawn but the slight vulnerability of the b6 pawn and a more active King gives him a reason to play on.

[Lewis Martin]

This is round 9, why are there so many draws on the top boards?

The same reason there are close matches in the later stages of the football World Cup (Germany-Brazil aside) : the teams are more closely matched, and there is more to lose.

But it isn't like that though is it? When you look closely, the draws were relatively early due to a lot of simplification quickly, not really challenging the opposition - nothing at all due to the apparent similarity in ability. Ukraine were not fighting for the gold medal against China.

Another example, Azerbaijan - Romania went from a 4 game match to a 1 game match quite quickly. Don't tell me that Mamedyarov played properly, because he, as a 2700 player as White vs a 2600 player drew early. They both rattled out the first ten moves very quickly.

Compare and contrast this to previous rounds.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Sadler should be winning now after his opponent played 49...Ne6. Sadler has played the right continuation: 50.Rh4.

[Mick Norris]

Mickey's ending is, one imagines, drawn but the slight vulnerability of the b6 pawn and a more active King gives him a reason to play on.

Hope so, David looks drawn now and Matthew appears to be winning, not quite sure how either of those happened but good news

[Lewis Martin]

Mamedov-Jianu has just finished after I typed my post. DO NOT TELL ME THAT IT WAS A DRAW WITH FIGHT. The fact that they concluded with 90 moves goes to show my point about it being very quickly concluded.