Olympiad

[Paolo Casaschi]

If I've known that it displayed the results as well...

It's quite comprehensive. There's not only the scoreboard of the matches, but you can click and follow the actual games. There's also got the Lawrence Trent etc. coverage in high quality video which also has feeds from selected games and the hall itself. They also implement the feature of showing the time elapsed for each move as well as the time remaining.

The scoreboard also has the relative assessment in graphic form from the watching engine.

The page is very informative, but they show the results "live" as they come from the DGT boards, so you might have the occasional mistake; in that sense those are not immediately "official" results as in blessed by an arbiter.

[Lewis Martin]

EDIT: Answer and all the stats you could wish for: http://www.olimpbase.org/teams/eng_tvt.html

It occurs to me that ENG (provided you include the pre-war years when the team was sometimes described as "BCF" or even British Empire) will have played the most number of matches by virtue of playing every(?) Olympiad, missing only the second half in 1939.

http://www.olimpbase.org/teams/eng_tea.html

Missed 1928 and 1950. Still an awesome number of games (2364). Imagine playing through all those...

An interesting statistic, when you look at the last 3 Olympiads, England have scored 26/44 game points (4 boards in 11 rounds in the "new" format)

Sadly, looking at the medal table it indicates that so far in the 21st century, we have mustered just one individual bronze medal.

England best finish is 7th, in 2000 and 2002. Since then however we have ended up outside of the top 10.

[Mick Norris]

Could be Kramnik - Topalov tomorrow? Aronian - Carlsen too

Round 5 on 2014/08/06 at 14:00
No. SNo Team Team Pts. MP Res. : Res. MP Pts. Team Team SNo
1 8 AZE Azerbaijan 12½ 8 : 8 13 Serbia SRB 29
2 1 RUS Russia 13½ 7 : 8 12½ Bulgaria BUL 18
3 4 ARM Armenia 12½ 6 : 7 10 Norway NOR 14
4 7 CHN China 12 7 : 7 12½ Netherlands NED 11
5 2 UKR Ukraine 12 7 : 7 11½ Uzbekistan UZB 33
6 9 ISR Israel 12 7 : 7 12½ Cuba CUB 13
7 49 KAZ Kazakhstan 12 7 : 7 12½ Turkey TUR 26
8 21 GEO Georgia 12½ 7 : 7 12 Belgium BEL 44
9 31 VIE Vietnam 13½ 7 : 7 12 England ENG 10

[Chris Rice]

Sadly, looking at the medal table it indicates that so far in the 21st century, we have mustered just one individual bronze medal.

I agree picking up a team medal is a long shot but the guys are doing ok at the moment so fingers crossed they can continue to do the business against Vietnam. We do have more hope of picking up an individual medal though. In 5th place on the Board 4 list is David Howell with 3.5/4 and leading on Board 5 with Moiseenko (Ukraine) is Matthew Sadler on 4/4. The format of Olympiads must really suit Matthew as his scoring in them is phenomenal.

[Mick Norris]

7.10.4
Individual Chess Medals for Board Prizes

Players assigned to the same board number in their respective team lists shall be in competition for individual board prizes namely: gold, silver and bronze medals. For the purposes of this award, the players performance rating shall be compared. If the performance rating is equal, the tie shall be broken by
(a) the number of games, and if this is also equal by
(b) the players performance rating after deducting the result against the lowest rated opponent, and if this is also equal by
(c) the players performance rating after deducting the results against the two lowest rated opponents and so on.

Only players who have played a minimum of 8 games shall be eligible for board prizes.

Too early to look at TPR, especially for Sadler and anyone else on 100%

[MartinCarpenter]

Have to imagine Russia will rest Kramnik? Some quite nasty disasters vs Topalov recently.

Wouldn't call a team medal a long shot as such - it would be entirely plausible for this team to finish third. Of course you can say precisely the same about a lot of other teams, so it will need a fair chunk of inspiration combined with some blind luck

Most comforting thing about Howell so far is perhaps that he seems to be handling his clock much more sensibly than he did at the British.

[Lewis Martin]

Have to imagine Russia will rest Kramnik? Some quite nasty disasters vs Topalov recently.

I think you'll find that Kramnik convincingly beat Topalov in Khanty-Mansiysk earlier this year.

Wouldn't call a team medal a long shot as such - it would be entirely plausible for this team to finish third. Of course you can say precisely the same about a lot of other teams, so it will need a fair chunk of inspiration combined with some blind luck

Most comforting thing about Howell so far is perhaps that he seems to be handling his clock much more sensibly than he did at the British.

I didn't say it was. (You were probably referring to someone else)

Of course we can get a medal, however one would suspect that maybe we need Jones to regain some of his form. Short has been so-so in recent Olympiads, I think he has always been a steady competitor but unfortunately for a team medal we need more than that.

But, the way Adams, Howell and especially Sadler are performing, who knows? So far, playing these 3 every match means we are guaranteed at least a draw!

[Roger de Coverly]

I mean, what other team has someone of the class of Matthew Sadler on such a low board?

If you look at today's game with "traditional" wisdom, you see that White incurred an isolated queen pawn in the middle to endgame and was duly despatched. The watching computer engine seemed to think that White was quite OK notwithstanding the IQP but then was out-played and got a losing position. The truth I suppose is a mixture of the two.

Still the board order plan seems to be working that you put the most dangerous dispatcher of "average by GM standard" player on the bottom board and trust the rest of the team to manage at least 50%.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Have to imagine Russia will rest Kramnik? Some quite nasty disasters vs Topalov recently.

I think you'll find that Kramnik convincingly beat Topalov in Khanty-Mansiysk earlier this year

Think it was a rather more close run thing than that, and it was with White - wouldn't he have Black tomorrow?

Where he has indeed had some shockers against Topa recently

[Roger de Coverly]

Revealing 6 minute interview between Danny King and Nigel Short on ChessBase.

It's a format that Danny is using with a number of players. In the case of Nigel I imagine Danny already knew most of the answers. It's a method also used by print magazines, both UK's Chess and New in Chess employing it.

[Nigel Short]

Lewis Martin: "Short has been so-so in recent Olympiads, I think he has always been a steady competitor but unfortunately for a team medal we need more than that."

Sure - like 7.5/10 in Istanbul 2012.

[Chris Rice]

If this is true then it must be deliberate 1.e4 g5 2.d4 f6 3.Qh5# - Masiyazi (Zimbabwe) - Esse (Togo) 2014 Chess Olympiad Women's Section today.

I see from ChessBase this morning that this was true:

"The game between Rhoda Masiyazi (Zimbabwe) vs. Akua Kosife Esse (Togo) finished after only 3 moves: 1.e4 f6 2.d4 g5 3.Qh5#. As much as the player from Togo would like to visit the city of Tromso, it seems rather disrespectful to come to the Olympiad and "play" such a game. Something very similar actually happened in the previous round."

Perhaps she did it for a dare or something, very disappointing. The only thing I can think of in her defence is that Esse is ungraded so its possible she is a complete beginner just included to make the numbers up.

[Chris Rice]

Breaking story regarding the Dresden Olympiad in 2008 and Afghanistan's participation in it.

http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/ ... d-of-fraud

[Mick Norris]

Have to imagine Russia will rest Kramnik? Some quite nasty disasters vs Topalov recently.

I think you'll find that Kramnik convincingly beat Topalov in Khanty-Mansiysk earlier this year

Think it was a rather more close run thing than that, and it was with White - wouldn't he have Black tomorrow?

Pairing is Russia - Bulgaria, so Kramnik would have white I assume

[Mick Norris]

Lewis Martin: "Short has been so-so in recent Olympiads, I think he has always been a steady competitor but unfortunately for a team medal we need more than that."

Sure - like 7.5/10 in Istanbul 2012.

Will be impressed if you repeat that