England Olympiad Teams

[Lewis Martin]

One point I'd like to ask: there are some teams that are rated highly due to having a higher rating 'average' despite not all of their players being rated.

I think the site quoting the ratings isn't official. It appears to have the England board order incorrect for one thing.

Of course, it only lists them (in some cases anyway) in alphabetical order, or some other way, but this does not affect the rating average, whatever order you put them in.

I also thought that the average was based on the four best players in the team according to their ELO, or have I got that wrong?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Is it possible that some Black-White colour considerations come into play as well? Adams on one has to take whatever colour the draw gives him, but the others can to some extent be deployed to take advantage of Whites.

What, like yourself in Opatija? Though it was a method that worked well for us, it'd leave England a bit more predictable in the Olympiad.

Can anyone see Short just bashing out the French every game, sacrificing himself for another player to try and earn White wins, like David Howell for example?

It only tends to work against the lower-rated teams. Against any of the higher teams, this strategy breaks down. So I suppose it depends how well England do and what teams they face! Anyone have any idea who they are likely to face in the first round (actually, little point in doing that until it is clear which teams will be there). The average rating, I have no idea how it is worked out for seeding, but you would think the Olympiad would have a way to do that (maybe look at previous Olympiads and see how the averages were calculated?).

[Roger de Coverly]

The average rating, I have no idea how it is worked out for seeding, but you would think the Olympiad would have a way to do that (maybe look at previous Olympiads and see how the averages were calculated?).

There is a formal rule.

http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html? ... ew=article

C. Ranking of Teams for Pairing Purposes

4. The teams in the open championship are composed by four players, the teams in the women’s championship are composed by four women players. One reserve player may be nominated per team.

5. Obtain a list of all teams participating and full names of all players of each team, including their board order, one month before the start of the Olympiad. The list of names and the order of the players can be changed only with the approval of the President of FIDE.

6. Record the FIDE rating of each team member having such a rating.

7. Assign an arbitrary rating equal to the minimum FIDE rating to team members who have no FIDE rating.

8. At the start of the championship all the teams are ranked in order of the average of their four highest FIDE-rated players. The team with the highest average rating shall be assigned Pairing Number 1, the second highest, Pairing Number 2, etc.

9. If two or more teams have the same average rating, they are ranked according to the rating
of (a) the fifth player (b) alphabetically.

10. For pairing of all rounds the teams are ranked in the following order:

(a) Match points
(b) Game points
(c) Ranking number according to article 9.

I'm not actually sure they are using Game points any longer. You would have to look up old threads about the 2010 and 2012 Olympiads to be sure, but there's some other strange calculation taking the place of game points. It's some form of weighting the match points of your previous opponents with the game points you score against them.

But for initial seeding, these rules say that only the top 4 count and if you have unrated players, these count as 1000.

[Roger de Coverly]

Anyone have any idea who they are likely to face in the first round (actually, little point in doing that until it is clear which teams will be there).

I think there are around 170 teams expected, visa difficulties permitting. England are unofficially ranked 9th so that means they might play the 94th seed. Thus, assuming no acceleration, an opponent from this range
https://chess24.com/en/olympiad2014/tea ... anguage=en

In 2010 England faced Malaysia who finished 92nd while in 2012, they face Andorra who are in the range of likely opposition again.

[Stewart Reuben]

If the England Open team fails to win in Round 1 it will be a huge upset. They only used Accelerated Pairings once in Dresden. It was a disaster because they ignored my advice that it had to continue for 3 rounds. It didn't help that Israel was paired with Yemen, against all commonsense, which meant they were certain to score 4-0 by default.
Choosing the notional rating for the unrated players isn't easy. Many years ago, Geurt Gijssen consulted me and that particular year we chose 2000 for the unrateds. Now it would be lower, but should not be the obvious 1000. Without doing any investigation, I might choose 1600.
Teams are not required to be listed in approximate rating order as in the 4NCL. That comes from before there was a rating system. But once the team list is handed in, it can no longer be changed.
Ranking is decided on match points in the first place. Thus what matters is winning, 2.5-1.5 is nearly as good as 4-0.
Where two teams have the same score, like Roger, I believe they re using a sort of Sonneborn-Berger System. If it is the same as in Lithuania for the Senior Team next week, it multiplies the points score against a team by the match points scored by that team; eliminating the lowest scoring opponent. I haven't tried to understand it. The system is changed every time and fails Reuben's test.
This is: WOULD AN INTELLIGENT AND MOTIVATED 14 YEAR OLD UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM?
Only if the SB system fails to break the tie do they turn to game points.

Visas for some may indeed prove a problem. The Gambians have been told they need to go to Ghana in order to get their visas. This is completely out of reach of their finances. It might be £500 per person.
There used to be great difficulty determining what teams were actually there. Then knowing the ratings of the players. Then there was the problem of getting the results correct. Then publishing the pairings. Then getting the team list correctly published for each round.

But things have been improved mightily.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Wales are in that range... When was the last time England played Wales, Ireland or Scotland? (I see all three have sent a team this time, along with Jersey and Guernsey). And does anyone know the last time that the world champion played in an Olympiad?

There are some rather eye-opening inclusions in the list of non-playing captains/coaches for the teams (IM Axel Smith for Guernsey, GM Igors Rausis for Jersey, GM Dejan Bojkov for Papua New Guinea, GM Nick De Firmian for Bermuda, GM Predrag Trajkovic for the Bahamas, GM Bartlomiej Heberla for Malta, GM Nikolay A. Legky for Lebanon, GM Mihajlo Stojanovic for Japan, GM Yuri Kruppa for Jordan, GM Alejandro Hoffman for Uruguay). I also noticed GM Alexander Khalifman captaining Azerbaijan.

[Roger de Coverly]

When was the last time England played Wales, Ireland or Scotland?

The most recent England v Scotland encounter was in 2006. I suppose they may have faced Ireland, but it's difficult to recall when. In 1974, Wales and Scotland were in the same preliminary group with Wales finishing second on tie break behind the Soviet Union to qualify for Group A.
http://www.olimpbase.org/1974/1974ea.html
In the finals England (Hartston, Keene, Whiteley, Markland) won by 3.5 to 0.5 against Wales (Williams, Hutchings, Jones, Cooper) with the Hartston-Williams game the only draw.

[Alex Holowczak]

Where two teams have the same score, like Roger, I believe they re using a sort of Sonneborn-Berger System. If it is the same as in Lithuania for the Senior Team next week, it multiplies the points score against a team by the match points scored by that team; eliminating the lowest scoring opponent. I haven't tried to understand it. The system is changed every time and fails Reuben's test.
This is: WOULD AN INTELLIGENT AND MOTIVATED 14 YEAR OLD UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM?
Only if the SB system fails to break the tie do they turn to game points.

I understand how to calculate the tie-break, but I don't understand why they're using it in preference to other tie-breaks. I think they've used the same system since the Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I understand how to calculate the tie-break, but I don't understand why they're using it in preference to other tie-breaks."

All tie-break systems have drawbacks, so it doesn't really matter what you use. I would agree with Stewart that using one that everyone can understand would make sense.