World Deaf Team Championships

[Alasdair MacLeod]

4th round

Israel 1 - 3 England

The team bounced back from the disappointment of the previous round by beating Israel. On board 1, Lewis had a tough game against GM Yehuda Gruenfeld where he lost but Neil Dunlop, Ilan Dwek and Chris Kreuzer all won their games on boards 2, 3 and 4.

Well done to the team who are currently in 6th place. In the 5th round, England are playing Ukraine, the 8th seeds. As Chris mentioned, there are two rounds tomorrow starting at 8am and 3pm (UK time). Good luck to them!

They have narrowly missed out on the live boards again so fingers crossed they get the right result in the morning to be on the live boards in the afternoon.

There are a lot of really good photos and video clips on the EDCA Facebook page - again thanks to Barry David and Ilan Dwek for this. Apparently this link should work even if you are not on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/English- ... 0612390756

[Alasdair MacLeod]

.... There was also a visit yesterday from the President of Georgia (I think) - must be a chess player?

I think it was Ivo Jospović, the President of Croatia. How do I know? GM Zlatko Klaric, the main organiser of the tournament, told me Isn't that a bit like David Cameron paying a visit to a tournament here? ...No, I can't imagine that ever happening either!

I don't know if you know but there is a "strong possibility" that Garry Kasparov will be at the Closing Ceremony. Apparently Klaric and he are "friends" and back at the Liverpool 2011 event I was shown a picture of them both outside I think Kasparov's Croatian holiday home.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Yeah. My mistake! We drew 2-2 against both Ukraine and Poland and play Italy on Wed.

[Roger de Coverly]

We drew 2-2 against both Ukraine and Poland and play Italy on Wed.

There was a discussion on the forum a while back about advantages and disadvantages of creative board orders when permitted. Browsing through http://chess-results.com/tnr135006.aspx ... =30&wi=821 suggests it's common practice in this event, not least by the English team.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

To be fair, we are putting our strongest player on board 1. Some teams don't even do that. While I am online, if the game scores are being posted for the non-live boards, have a look at my round 5 game for another piece of hackery. If the games are not online, we will try and upload the game scores somewhere. Some nice tactics in the other games as well.

[Michael Farthing]

I think board order changes should positively be encouraged!
It's a team game. Use your men (or women (or juniors (or hearing unimpaired)) where they can be best made use of.
The main advantage of strict board order is that it avoids internal dissent.

[Alasdair MacLeod]

5th round

England 2 - 2 Ukraine

The games for this round haven't come out yet but we came out with a fine 2 - 2 draw against Ukraine, the 8th seeds and who outrated us on all boards.

Well done to Lewis Martin on beating Vladimir Kovalenko (ELO 2087) on board 1 and to Christopher Kreuzer on beating Volodymyr Zabolotny (ELO 2047) on board 3.


6th round

Poland 2 - 2 England

This match was shown live http://www.zng111.hr/deaf2014/d6/ and while I managed to watch the second half of the games I felt nervous for the team, more than if I was playing! On board 1, Lewis Martin as black against Jerzy Strzelecki (ELO 2089), managed to wriggle out of a difficult opening where after falling behind in development, he managed to sniff out every chance of counterplay. Then all of sudden his opponent blundered while still in a better position and Lewis pounced on this mistake with a rook sacrifice forcing the win of the queen after knight forks queen and king.

On board 2, Neil Dunlop played really well against Mateusz Lapaj (ELO 2098) who was on fire with 5/5 so far and stood better after winning the exchange but his opponent was fortunate to have sufficient counterplay available which made the position unclear. After black's 35th move I was wondering where the white king should go and I was feeling pessimistic until Neil played the amazing move 36. Qd3!! which must have been the only move. It was a great shame that Neil's blunder soon after lost the game which spoiled what was an exciting game. Poland went 2-1 up after Ilan Dwek had a tough game with black against Marcin Chojnowski (ELO 2084) where he was hanging on until a blunder lost on the spot.

So this left Chris Kreuzer needing to win his game against Tomasz Miozga (ELO 1881) on board 4 to equalise. Chris kept his cool where he always seemed to stay in control with white and calmly played into a won rook and pawn endgame to make it 2-2.

Well done to both Lewis and Chris on winning their games again. It is a good time to mention that Lewis is on 4/6 on board 1 with a 2292 performance so far while Chris is on 5/6 with a 2252 performance. At the top, the ICCD World Champion IM Vladimir Klasan (Serbia) is on 6/6 on board 1, a Carlsen-like performance of 2960. GM Yehuda Gruenfeld is also on 6/6 on board 1 but hasn't faced as many strong players as IM Klasan has.

England are currently 8th and Serbia are in 1st place so far with 3 rounds left to play.
http://chess-results.com/tnr135006.aspx ... =30&wi=821

It is a rest day today (but not for Barry David, Ilan Dwek and Phillip Gardner who are involved in the ICCD Congress scheduled to last all day from 9am to 6pm!).

In the 7th round tomorrow England play against Italy, the 9th seeds, who have the luxury of having IM Duilio Collutiis (ELO 2471) on board 1. He won the Italian Championship in 2002 amongst IM's and GM's.

Good luck to the England team!

[Alasdair MacLeod]

We drew 2-2 against both Ukraine and Poland and play Italy on Wed.

There was a discussion on the forum a while back about advantages and disadvantages of creative board orders when permitted. Browsing through http://chess-results.com/tnr135006.aspx ... =30&wi=821 suggests it's common practice in this event, not least by the English team.

While I was one of 2 selectors who picked the 6 players, it was Barry David as captain who decided on the board order after discussing it with the players and with me in private. There were clear reasons for the order chosen - the main one simply being to try and get as many match points as possible! For obvious reasons I am not going to talk about that here (Google Translate is a quite nice resource ) but will be happy to discuss this after the tournament has finished.

The "creative board orders" has only really occurred in ICCD events relatively recently where Italy then Bulgaria kicked off this trend.

It's interesting to note that the current leaders, Serbia, are one of the few teams who have so far used 4 players in the "right" playing strength order. Don't be fooled by some players not having an ELO. For example, I seem to remember it mentioned here on this forum a few years ago that Ian Watson had an ECF grade of about 220 but has never had an ELO rating!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

For reasons I'll leave to others to explain, Serbia were docked three match points, and the draw changed. England played Serbia instead of Italy and drew 2-2. Now waiting to see who we play in round 8.

[Roger de Coverly]

For reasons I'll leave to others to explain, Serbia were docked three match points,

It's not an explanation, but the "board 5" Serbian player has been deemed to have defaulted all his games.

http://chess-results.com/tnr135006.aspx ... =30&wi=821

The usual reason that happens is because he was caught consulting a computer or perhaps another player. But it could have been something else, eligibility perhaps.

[Rob Thompson]

An almighty TPR for Lewis there.

[Alasdair MacLeod]

For reasons I'll leave to others to explain, Serbia were docked three match points,

It's not an explanation, but the "board 5" Serbian player has been deemed to have defaulted all his games.

http://chess-results.com/tnr135006.aspx ... =30&wi=821

The usual reason that happens is because he was caught consulting a computer or perhaps another player. But it could have been something else, eligibility perhaps.

I can say straight away that it was NOT a case of 'cheating' but one of eligibility. I have a rough idea of what happened but I still don't know the full story as I have been waiting for an official explanation. However, so far there's been nothing on either the tournament website or the ICCD website which is very disappointing to see. I accept they have all been living in a 'bubble' in Opatija but they need to be aware that the world can see the round 7 pairings were changed and that Serbia dropped from being leaders down to 4th. The England officials there are also players so quite rightly they have been focussing on the chess rather than the politics. One of our players who is not an official, Neil Dunlop, has given a decent concise explanation and I have quoted from him;

"...The number 5 player was found to have a hearing loss of only 28dB, well under the ICCD requirement of a minimum of 55dB. The player's results in earlier rounds have all been converted to loss by default. This results in Serbia losing 3 match points and other teams gaining 1 match point, because their 3-1 losses to Serbia became 2-2 draws. The draw for the 7th round has been revised and now England play Serbia instead of Italy! Serbia had five players in their squad, now they're down to four in listed board order: Cimesa, Klasan, Zivic and Moldovanovic. They are making noises about pulling out. Unsettling for England wondering if Serbia are playing or not but we are preparing as though the match is on...."

The big question on everyone's lips is obviously how was this allowed to happen until 6 rounds had been played rather than before the tournament? Personally, I am very sorry that this happened as it has put a dampener on what has been an excellent tournament so far.


Now this is the perfect moment for me to stop writing about that and will write about the round 7 match between England and Serbia where as Chris says, we drew 2-2. On board 1 Lewis won again against Cimesa (ELO 2020), on board 2 Neil, instead of possibly facing Deancovich (ELO 1579) of Italy, lost to the most formidable opponent of them all, the ICCD World Champion IM Klasan (ELO 2333). Chris's opponent FM Zivic withdrew in protest at what happened and so we scored a default win - again, I am sorry to see this as we want to win on the chessboard, not outside it. On board 4 Barry David lost to Moldovanovic (ELO 2034).

Well done again to Lewis, he is on 5/7 and his TPR is now 2304 gaining 32 ELO points so far. It is frustrating that we know he should have a far higher ELO rating as his ECF grade of 194 surely indicates that he should be around the 2175-2200 ballpark area. But he will need to produce the same brilliant performance at least twice before he reaches that!

In round 8 we face Italy....our original round 7 opponents (!) so good luck to the team who are in currently 9th place.

As an aside, warm congratulations goes to our own Phillip Gardner who will be the new ICCD President as from 1st January 2015. Also, our own Michael Freund was awarded a silver medal in recognition of his long service as ICCD Treasurer for 12 years as he will step down on 31st December 2014. Well done to both of them!

[Alasdair MacLeod]

8th round

Italy 1 - 3 England

The game scores haven't come out yet so we can only rely on the individual board results only to tell the story. We got off to a great start with Phillip Gardner beating Marco Grudina (ELO 1756) on board 4 which was soon followed by Ilan Dwek beating Patrizio Deancovich (ELO 1579) on board 2. On board 1 Lewis Martin had a tough pairing playing black against IM Collutiis (ELO 2471) where he eventually lost. So England were 2-1 up with one to play where they needed at least a draw to win the match. On board 3 Chris Kreuzer did exactly that, beating Mirko Pasquotto (ELO 1869) with the black pieces.

Well done to the England team on this fine match win, a pleasant change from all those 2-2 draws!

For the latest results and standings after round 8 click on this link;
http://chess-results.com/tnr135006.aspx ... =30&wi=821

As you can see, England are 5th= on match points but are currently 7th if you apply the tiebreak of game points.

In the 9th and final round we are playing against Bulgaria, the leaders. This will be LIVE where you can watch it from 8.30am today;

http://www.zng111.hr/deaf2014/d9/

Unfortunately I will be working so won't be able to watch it live but will be able to play through the games once I have a chance to! Straight after work I will be away on a short holiday until Monday so I will not be providing a report on this round until late on Monday evening. So keep an eye on the above link, the chess-results.com website and the EDCA Facebook page!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/English- ... 0612390756

Bulgaria need at least a 2-2 draw to become World Champions. England have an outside chance of a medal where we need to beat Bulgaria and hope the other results go our way!

Good luck to the team, fingers crossed!

[Simon Brown]

All games drawn in 20 minutes, with all four boards making a total of 17 moves.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Final results now out. England finish sixth on some tiebreak I don't understand, ahead of the Russians. Last round games were interesting to watch after our early finish.