39th Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk 2010 (the chess)

[Alex Holowczak]

Turkey with white on odds in the Open tomorrow. Should be winnable. Tough one for the women, an upfloat white on evens against Argentina.

[David Brock]

I think it is a good draw for tommorrow they should be encouraged with a good nights sleep and a will to win they should squeeze at least 3 points out of tommorrows game. I would also stick with Gawain and rest either Luke or David what do you think?

[Matthew Turner]

Odds on Short resting tomorrow. He will have FIDE business, the match should be winnable without him and Adams will probably want to win with White to get some momentum

[Alex Holowczak]

I think it is a good draw for tommorrow they should be encouraged with a good nights sleep and a will to win they should squeeze at least 3 points out of tommorrows game. I would also stick with Gawain and rest either Luke or David what do you think?

I think tomorrow is an opportunity for McShane and Adams to get some winning momentum. Howell just had a day off, so I'd put him in. So I have Adams, McShane and Howell so far. McShane lost with white today, so if I wanted to give him another go with white (which I would), then I'd pick Short so McShane could play white on 3. So I'd probably go for Adams, Short, McShane and Howell. It probably boils down to the players too, someone might want a rest more than others.

[James Coleman]

My money would be on McShane resting, mainly as Short's rested once already. Jones is playing well, and Turkey are definitely good enough to cause us problems if we are not at our best.

[benedgell]

Hampshire- based Ugandan Steven Kawuma with a very decent win against a gm today.

[Mark Howitt]

In theory we should play our strongest team. The only change I would be possibly tempted to make is Jones for Howell- as Jones does seem to be good at beating lower rated players and seems to be in quite good form. It's a match we can't afford to be complacent about at all- I think we will need either Adams, Short, McShane and Howell or Adams, Short, McShane and Jones to win- and all players must be performing to at least 90% of their capabilities.

It really is silly about this concept of 'resting' players. I think it's only arisen because of there being five people in the team, and wanting to play everyone and treating everyone 'fairly'. Reality is there's a game tomorrow, then another game, then a rest day. Can't even argue so far that the team have been drained by playing super hard opponents- Malayasia and South Africa should be easy wins for England!

[LozCooper]

Round 4 board pairings:

Turkey (TUR) Rtg 0 : 0
18.1 GM Adams Michael 2728 - IM Esen Baris 2538
18.2 GM Short Nigel D 2690 - GM Haznedaroglu Kivanc 2483
18.3 GM McShane Luke J 2657 - IM Yilmaz Mustafa 2482
18.4 GM Howell David W L 2616 - IM Erdogdu Mert 2428

28 Argentina (ARG) Rtg - 39 England (ENG) Rtg 0 : 0
26.1 IM Lujan Carolina 2312 - IM Houska Jovanka 2426
26.2 WGM Amura Claudia 2329 - WFM Grigoryan Meri 2099
26.3 WIM Plazaola Maria De Los Angeles 2203 - Bhatia Kanwal K 2072
26.4 Fernandez Maria Florencia 2119 - WFM Hegarty Sarah N 2084

[David Brock]

Well now they are playing all of the big boys I expect us to score at least 4-0.

Good luck to the boys later and heres to bashing the Turks!!

[Alan Walton]

Can't even argue so far that the team have been drained by playing super hard opponents- Malayasia and South Africa should be easy wins for England!

Once you play players whose ratings are over 2300 there are never easy wins, players are expected to win, but in reality it is never that easy

And although the team did win against S Africa, the players wouldn't have gone into the game thinking it is easy, and I remember Luke's opponent from Gibraltar a couple of years ago and he seem then a young and dangerous player who has improved over that last year or so

[John Philpott]

Alan Walton wrote

Once you play players whose ratings are over 2300 there are never easy wins

Erdogdu-Howell did not look like the hardest win David has ever had!

[Ian Kingston]

Alan Walton wrote

Once you play players whose ratings are over 2300 there are never easy wins

Erdogdu-Howell did not look like the hardest win David has ever had!

Quite funny though.

[John Saunders]

Carlsen looks dead lost against Jobava.

[Michael Jones]

Carlsen has a habit of drawing dead lost positions so I wouldn't say it's over yet, but it certainly looks promising for white. Norway look lost on board 4 as well.

Nepomniachtchi vs Sasikiran was a nice finish.

Oh, Carlsen's lost, and Polgar beat Bu Xiangzhi. McShane is definitely winning.

[Ola Winfridsson]

Hampshire- based Ugandan Steven Kawuma with a very decent win against a gm today.

I think you may have misread the table. According to Chess Results Kawuma lost to Peralta (he won in round two against the Seychelles).

It really is silly about this concept of 'resting' players. I think it's only arisen because of there being five people in the team, and wanting to play everyone and treating everyone 'fairly'. Reality is there's a game tomorrow, then another game, then a rest day. Can't even argue so far that the team have been drained by playing super hard opponents- Malayasia and South Africa should be easy wins for England!

I would argue exactly the opposite, there's every reason to rest players regardless of whether there's a rest day or not in a couple of days. It's all individual as well: some players prefer to take rest to recover mentally after a bad loss, others want to get straight back into the saddle. Some are perhaps better rested just because the opposition is on the weakish side, and they may have a tendency to be careless against that type of opposition, etc. etc. Those permutations are endless, and should a team member fall ill later, I'm not sure it such a good idea to have to bung in a reserve who may have played only a couple of games in the last 5-7 rounds, especially if you're facing one of the top teams.