Olympiad

[Mick Norris]

Board-prizes (Rank after Round 9) - Open
Important: Minimum 8 games
Board 1
Rk. Name Rtg Team Rp Games Pts. % RtgAvg
1 GM Carlsen, Magnus 2877 Norway 2868 8 6.0 75.0 2675
2 GM Topalov, Veselin 2772 Bulgaria 2864 7 5.0 71.4 2706
3 GM Adams, Michael 2740 England 2834 7 5.0 71.4 2676
4 GM Giri, Anish 2745 Netherlands 2824 9 6.5 72.2 2658
5 GM Kasimdzhanov, Rustam 2700 Uzbekistan 2805 8 5.5 68.8 2664


Board 4
Rk. Name Rtg Team Rp Games Pts. % RtgAvg
1 GM Sedlak, Nikola 2554 Serbia 2760 7 5.5 78.6 2521
2 GM Ni, Hua 2666 China 2758 7 5.5 78.6 2513
3 GM Ortiz Suarez, Isan Reynaldo 2603 Cuba 2758 6 4.5 75.0 2565
4 GM Edouard, Romain 2680 France 2751 7 5.5 78.6 2517
5 GM Safarli, Eltaj 2649 Azerbaijan 2707 6 4.5 75.0 2492
6 GM Howell, David W L 2650 England 2687 8 6.0 75.0 2489


Board 5
Rk. Name Rtg Team Rp Games Pts. % RtgAvg
1 IM Michel Yunis, Christian D. 2311 Palestine 2886 7 7.0 100.0 1899
2 GM Shankland, Samuel L 2624 United States of America 2877 8 7.5 93.8 2422
3 GM Moiseenko, Alexander 2707 Ukraine 2751 7 6.0 85.7 2433
4 GM Van Kampen, Robin 2638 Netherlands 2687 7 5.0 71.4 2512
5 GM Tkachiev, Vladislav 2624 France 2679 6 4.5 75.0 2469
6 GM Indjic, Aleksandar 2539 Serbia 2664 6 4.0 66.7 2539
7 GM Sadler, Matthew D 2653 England 2641 9 6.5 72.2 2467

[Lewis Martin]

Lewis - after 58 Re2+ Kf5 59 Kd6 Kg4 60 Ke7 Kg3 61 Kf6 how does Black win. Maybe I am getting very old but I don't yet see it.

Indeed John, the position is drawn due to the line 61..h4 62.Ra2 h3 63.Kg5 Nf5 64.Ra3+ Kg2 65.Kg4 h2 66.Ra2+ =

Be interested to hear the views of those whose various relations would have won this with ease. Maybe it's still a win, but the position doesn't look resignable just yet. Oh and Andy, if the Danish guy thought there was the remotest chance of him drawing, he wouldn't have resigned.

It is indeed a challenging position for both sides to progress. Perhaps the win isn't as trivial as first thought, but in practice White will have done very very well to rescue it with a draw!

I agree that the knight is awkwardly placed on h6.

In your line (John), I think that the knight should move to e5. So, by this I mean:

Re2+ Kf5, Kd6 Ng4, and if Ke7, then Ne5 should hold station, while Black progresses his g and h-pawns. We could discuss this at length for a long time. There might indeed be a drawing line, but this isn't a good practical study since it is very unlikely a human player will defend this accurately, when it is much easier to be the attacking player.

It is probably one of those positions where an enthusiast will analyse this at length for the sake of endgame theory, or proving that White was far too premature to resign, by showing all (if there really is more than one, it must be easy to make a slip somewhere down the line) the drawn variations for White.

[Mark Howitt]

It's a funny world.

I remember in Huddersfield chess club quite a few years ago... Greg Eagleton who had only just learnt the game (he had a really low grading... about a Yorkshire grading of 50) and I beat in a match a bit later knew the bishop and knight ending and I was a bit 'unsure' about it- it never came up for me in a game anyway. Shows that some players are a bit hyped!

Haven't seen any other games in this Olympiad where a player resigned in a drawn positon either. You have to keep fighting until you are completely sure the position is lost.

[MartinCarpenter]

Only really strongly while the match is alive. Once its dead, you're pretty much free to resign rather than suffer without real hope

[Mark Howitt]

When you think about it though, chess is not really a 'team' game. That thought of giving up just becaue the team had lost never really entered my head when I was playing, although I did want the team to win. I was focused on my result. Chess is a very individually graded game unlike team sports like football.

[John McKenna]

JustinHorton>... Have any of the competitors complained of problems sleeping due to the extremely truncated night?<

Chessbase has reported -

May 20 to July 22, the city is graced by the Midnight Sun and daylight around the clock. It then gets gradually darker every night – but you will still get to experience those bright summer nights in August.

The Radisson Blu is hosting many of the top teams and is a few minutes walk from where the action will take place. The hotels are very close to the sea. Strangely enough this has caused a complaint from a few players: the seagulls are very, very loud! Since there is no darkness in Tromso this time of the year it seems that they are just hyperactive constantly.

Sounds like murder for someone trying to solve a mystery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insomnia_(2002_film)

[Rob Thompson]

I find it amusing that Carlsen can be leading the Board 1 competition and still be underperforming.

[Chris Rice]

This is the Danish report on yesterday's game and clearly Jacob Aagard was gutted about what happened

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/?cat=3

[Simon Brown]

John

My assessment was based on the position with zero analysis. If it is drawn I stand corrected but it would be difficult to hold in practice with Lewis' approach above.

[MartinCarpenter]

Team chess (done well that is) is actually very much a team game

Take say Adams' game yesterday. He'd quite possibly have done something sharper in a big swiss where he'd be after a massive personal score, but in a team event if you get four games where you're gently pressing without risk you'll have one of them turn into a win most of the time, and win the match. Works even better in matches with more boards of course.

Parts of the rest of the match were of course not quite as well controlled!

[Lewis Martin]

You have to keep fighting until you are completely sure the position is lost.

But that's it though. He must have been sure it was lost. He probably was drained, tired, a bit miffed since the team lost anyway, and just couldn't see a way to a win or a draw. It was one of those situations where he had to play very accurately and quickly, just to stay in the game, he probably just couldn't be bothered. We're only talking about half a game point in the middle of the field (since the team result was more or less determined), and he isn't really in contention for an individual medal either so...

[Lewis Martin]

I find it amusing that Carlsen can be leading the Board 1 competition and still be underperforming.

There are only 5 players within 100 points of Carlsen's rating (excluding Anand since he isn't there!), and they aren't doing that well either!

It is a bit harsh to say Carlsen is underperforming. He hasn't been as spectacular as we hoped, granted, but he still beat Caruana, drew with Aronian as Black and is currently looking at a (very) small plus in the live ratings. (0.3)

But.....

GO MICKEY!!

[JustinHadi]

France vs China should be epic today!

[MartinCarpenter]

A bit terrifying how fast they could move down the table too. 5 teams only 1/2 a match behind and one match behind gets you down to 20th.

[Lewis Martin]

France vs China should be epic today!

No doubt Ukraine - Azerbaijan too.