England Olympiad Teams

[Roger de Coverly]

The ECF website announces these

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/announce ... iad-teams/

The Open team is the five you would expect with a recall for Matthew Sadler. Luke had declared himself unavailable. The non-playing captain is Peter Wells.

The Women's team in alphabetic order is
Sabrina Chevannes, Jovanka Houska, Ann-Marie James, Akshaya Kalaiyalahan and Sue Maroroa with Stuart Conquest as Coach/Captain.

[Lewis Martin]

An interesting selection for the women's team. Very different from the previous team though stronger, one would say. I am pleased for Akshaya that she has been selected, perhaps as a reserve looking at the team, but nevertheless a good opportunity for her.

It is hard for someone else to be given a chance in the men's team since you probably have to be over 2600 just to get a look in, or if some players were unavailable. A very strong team for England, hope they manage a good showing: there seems to be quite a few recent tournaments where the team are placed below their ranking at the end of the tournament.

However as for the medal places, it is hard to see beyond the main favourites/competitors in recent years...

[Jonathan Rogers]

An interesting selection for the women's team. Very different from the previous team though stronger, one would say. I am pleased for Akshaya that she has been selected, perhaps as a reserve looking at the team, but nevertheless a good opportunity for her.

Yes, it is a stronger team, and until recently (before Dagne withdrew) it had been even stronger. Anne-Marie is the reserve.

It is hard for someone else to be given a chance in the men's team since you probably have to be over 2600 just to get a look in, or if some players were unavailable. A very strong team for England, hope they manage a good showing: there seems to be quite a few recent tournaments where the team are placed below their ranking at the end of the tournament.

Agreed. In fact, in this century only in Dresden 2008 could it really be said that they clearly justified their seeding or arguably exceeded it. So I am pleased that this time fielding a full-strength English team has not been at the cost of properly supporting the women's team.

However as for the medal places, it is hard to see beyond the main favourites/competitors in recent years...

Agreed, and this could well be the case for the foreseeable future, though it would at least make more sense to make an each-way bet* on the English team this year than in recent years. Sadler's availability could well inject an extra something that has been missing of late.

*If that could stretch to a top ten or top eight place

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Do England have any flexibility on board order? (i.e. what are the rules on this for the Olympiad?) For the Open team, I'm wondering which of our players might expect to score heavily and/or challenge for a board medal? Here's hoping that all the players (in Open and Women's competitions) manage to perform at the top of their game.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Unless the rules have changed, we can nominate the players in any order, regardless of rating - but then we have to stick to that order throughout the event. Recently we have adopted the tactic of playing Short relatively low down, with some success, but it depends on having an in-form/solid board two. England's problem is that it tends not to have "solid" players and so has had to second guess who will be in form, and neither Luke in Warsaw last year, nor Gawain in Istanbul, were able to raise their game for the occasion.

In my view, Sadler on board two would be a good try.

[Roger de Coverly]

Do England have any flexibility on board order? (i.e. what the the rules on this for the Olympiad?)

You can set whatever ranking order you like, but the order has to be the same for every match. Perhaps there's less point now the pairings and rankings are done by match point, but some third and fourth quartile teams would hide their sole strong player down the board order. This gave them a fighting chance of scoring at least something against stronger opposition and gave the individual a chance of a board prize before this also was changed, to use Actual - Expected.

Take a look at the line up of Cyprus for example at Istanbul
http://www.olimpbase.org/2012/2012cyp.html

1 Melas, Renos 2108
2 Lazaris, Stelios 1827
3 Aristotelous, Vassilis 1938
4 Constantinou, Pavlos 2064
res. CM Antoniou, Antonis 2205

Not a board order you would be allowed in the 4NCL or any UK League. The guy on board 2 got 0/6 while the board 5 got 6/9.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

In my view, Sadler on board two would be a good try.

Will probably never happen (and shouldn't, IMO, as it is good to see Adams taking on the world's best), but would be the likely outcome of playing Adams on a lower board than board one? Just unnecessary loss of rating points? (This would be why no top teams do this).

[MartinCarpenter]

You'd imagine the main consqeuence would be us losing an awful lot more games on board 1 than we would otherwise

[IM Jack Rudd]

There's very little point in playing Adams on a lower board than 1, because he's a reasonably solid, consistent scorer against the board 1 players. The reason for playing Short low down is that he is a highly skilled "bunny-basher" - compare and contrast his performances in Gibraltar (facing mostly slightly weaker opposition) and his performances in the London Classic (facing mostly slightly stronger opposition) over the past few years.

[Lewis Martin]

In terms of Board 1, especially in terms of fighting for medals, you'd really need a 2700 player. Had Luke been a professional, played more chess, and managed to be in the 2700s, then you could argue for Luke to be on board 1 and Adams on 2.

I'd agree with Jonathan Rogers and Jack Rudd about Adams on 1 and Short on a lower board. You could argue that Jones also is similar to Short in that sense.

Howell is improving, some people might say slowly, but he finally seems to be picking up a bit after hovering around the 2600 mark for a while now. Whether he and Jones manage to push on to 2700 remains to be seen, but of course, one would hope so!

Sadler is the more experienced player, actually a fairly solid player himself too. I'd select in board order (in the unexpected scenario where I am the Captain):

1. Adams
2. Sadler
3. Howell
4. Short
5. Jones

where I'd be tempted to split the duties of board 2, basically expecting to see more of a 1,2,4,5 and 1,3,4,5 etc rather than an even split of games played or a scenario of alternating between: 1,2,3,4 and 1,2,3,5 if you see what I mean.

I appreciate that there is a case of selecting the team based on "how much energy have they got left in the tank" as well in later rounds, but it'd be interesting to see how it goes. Of course, Peter Wells will know a lot more about it than me.

[Stewart Reuben]

I think it may confuse some to refer to the fifth player as a 'reserve'.
Basically, the fifth player, when selected to play, always does so on board 4. With the second team in the European Senior Team Championship in Croatia this year, we more or less rotated the players so that each got at least 7 games, irrespective of their form at the event. I imagine this is true for many of the weaker amateur teams in the Olympiad.

I have never detected any appetite for changing the Olympiad and Continental Team Championship Rules so that a player cannot play below another player if rated 100 points higher. Presumably that is because not so very long ago many of the weaker teams had unrated players in the 5.

[Roger de Coverly]

I have never detected any appetite for changing the Olympiad and Continental Team Championship Rules so that a player cannot play below another player if rated 100 points higher. Presumably that is because not so very long ago many of the weaker teams had unrated players in the 5.

In the not so distant past and perhaps present all the players in an Olympiad team might be unrated. That wouldn't be difficult when the cutoff was 2000 or 2200.

It's one of the consequences of extending the rating Rules downwards, that board order manipulation in the Olympiad becomes much more obvious. Ratings show up board orders that would not be tolerated in almost every UK League.

I've never really known who decides the board order in ENG teams. Is this decided by the Selection Committee, the match captain, the players or some combination of the three?

[NickFaulks]

It should not be forgotten that ratings in developing nations are still corrupted from the days when they were victimised by the use of 2200 or 2205 ratings as prizes for players of nothing resembling that ability. The great majority of teams ( though not all, and we know who the usual suspects are ) do in fact put their teams in what they consider to be order of playing strength.

[Stewart Reuben]

Roger >I've never really known who decides the board order in ENG teams. Is this decided by the Selection Committee, the match captain, the players or some combination of the three?<

The responsibility lies with the Selection Committee. The chairman is the International Director.
They find out who is available. They also appoint the captain. Of course they consult the players on the captain and team order and use up to date information.

I got rid of the awful 2205, later 2200, rule for 50% in the Olympiad. Camp didn't notice. Then he spotted it and got it reinstated in 1994. I think I was the only person with the guts to speak against the proposal. (I wasn't a member of the QC at that time.) Then Campo suggested 2001 for the women. I pointed out that 2000 was now the floor and some women stop playing to protect their rating. So, it would be better to give them 2050 if that was what the QC really wanted. This was agreed.

To give outsiders an idea of how ludicrous all this was.
Nick Faulks got more than 50% in the Olympiad on more than one occasion. But his established rating was under 2200 and he was never moved up.
Leighton Williams got the gold medal on board 5 (or 6?) for Wales in 1994. But he had a new rating from 1 January under 2200. It was that lower one which was published. However, he had the advantage of me on his side and I got it changed up to 2200.

[Roger de Coverly]

The ECF site has now announced the Board Order

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/opens-te ... -olympiad/

Adams, Jones, Short, Howell, Sadler

Not that you have to play in order of rating or strength, but the latter four have almost identical ratings.