English Chess Forum

Chris Rice wrote:An hour long documentary of the opening ceremony. I managed to watch about three minutes. Apparently you can "maximise" and go to 4:25 min for the unusual drawing of colours, and to 39 minutes for really exciting, exotic stuff. http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-world ... ips-opened

FIDE World Team Championship Rd 1 Pairings

Egypt have managed to get a team in though its very weak and they should get crushed by Russia. India v Poland looks like the best match to follow today.

FIDE Women's World Team Championship Rd 1

Very interesting opening matches in USA v Ukraine and Russia v China

Start time should be 1pm BST

They started at 11am our time, there's a 4 hour difference between England and Khanty.

Chris Rice wrote:Egypt have managed to get a team in though its very weak and they should get crushed by Russia.

Egypt is not one of the strongest chess nations, but they are there as advertised. As so often, it would be interesting to know where Sutovsky gets his information.

NickFaulks wrote:

Chris Rice wrote:Egypt have managed to get a team in though its very weak and they should get crushed by Russia.

Egypt is not one of the strongest chess nations, but they are there as advertised. As so often, it would be interesting to know where Sutovsky gets his information.

Emil was in fine fettle earlier on FB:

In a few hours, the first round of the world's men and women's world championship will be held in Khanty. The tournament, which logically has to be one of the most prestigious competitions in the calendar, this year seems strange.

The USA have no Caruana, Nakamura and So, Russians have no Kramnik, Karjakin, and Grishchuk, Ukrainians without Eljanov and Ivanchuk, Norwegians without Carlsen and Hammer. This is all because of the very bad timing of the tournament. As Fide has managed to impose the Stavanger dates and the stages of the grand prix tour (Paris and Leuven)on the calendar, I do not understand.

Okay, the dates were made in order to torpedo the competition. It was obvious that all the fittest would simply abandon this competition. Moreover, as I know, due to this timing, the teams of Azerbaijan and Armenia refused to participate in Khanty, deciding that without their leaders (Mammadyarov and Aronian), there is no chance of success. As a result, we received almost the most unrepresentative team world championship in history. Of course, it will still be a tournament, but it's painful.

The Chinese National Team will be the only one of the top teams represented properly and the Russians are still able to win such a tournament in the absence of its leaders. The battle for third will be between, Ukraine, India (without Anand and Harikrishna!) and Poland. The teams of Belarus, Turkey, Norway and Egypt are capable of a surprise, but they will need to jump above their heads. I don't believe it. Anyway, we have an interesting tournament, but there is a mismatch between the membership and the big names in the World Team Championships.

Women are closer to playing their best teams, although Hou is not playing for China, for Ukraine, the Muzychuk sisters, and India's Humpy, and for the Americans Zatonskikh is playing top board. This is again a consequence of the low status of the world championship - national federations of some countries do not make special efforts to attract all the strongest. In such a scenario, Clear-cut favourites are Russia but we should not forget the winners of the previous world cup, the national team of Georgia.

In General, I still don't understand why Fide doesn't do anything to make the World Team Championship a truly competitive competition. Personally, it would be very interesting to see the truly powerful teams of the world compete in a round-Robin.

Kosteniuk has to go through the indignity of having to take off her wrist watch during play http://chess-news.ru/node/23318

Chris Rice wrote:Kosteniuk has to go through the indignity of having to take off her wrist watch during play

Whoever in FIDE dreamed up the "no pens or watches" rule is suffering from a case of paranoia against common possessions. Ban the sophisticated ones by all means, but what's the problem with an old fashioned watch or pen?

Chris Rice wrote:Egypt have managed to get a team in though its very weak and they should get crushed by Russia. India v Poland looks like the best match to follow today.

They managed a draw on top board although that is likely to be as good as it gets for them.

Chris Rice wrote:Emil was in fine fettle earlier on FB:

He is a member of the Commission for World Championships and Olympiads. If he believes everything is so mismanaged, perhaps it's time he resigned and did us all a favour.

NickFaulks wrote:He is a member of the Commission for World Championships and Olympiads. If he believes everything is so mismanaged, perhaps it's time he resigned and did us all a favour.

Sutovsky is critical that Anand isn't playing for India. Vishy never plays for India. What planet is he living on?

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Chris Rice wrote:Kosteniuk has to go through the indignity of having to take off her wrist watch during play

Whoever in FIDE dreamed up the "no pens or watches" rule is suffering from a case of paranoia against common possessions. Ban the sophisticated ones by all means, but what's the problem with an old fashioned watch or pen?

I sympathise with your point of view, but the trouble is that there are now smart watches and pens that are styled to look like traditional analogue instruments. So without close inspection it's hard to tell the difference, and I guess that becomes time-consuming and intrusive. It happens with things like GCSE and A level exams nowadays as well.

Something seems amiss in the Ukrainian camp. Yesterday three of them agreed quick draws against Turkey who they outrated on every board and left it to Ponomariov to get the win which he failed to do. Similarly today the exact same strategy has left Areshchenko as the man in the hot seat vs Belarus.

Update: Areshchenko draws as well so 2-2 and most of the other matches have barely recorded any results.

Chris Rice wrote:Something seems amiss in the Ukrainian camp. Yesterday three of them agreed quick draws against Turkey who they outrated on every board and left it to Ponomariov to get the win which he failed to do. Similarly today the exact same strategy has left Areshchenko as the man in the hot seat vs Belarus.

Update: Areshchenko draws as well so 2-2 and most of the other matches have barely recorded any results.

Maybe Bogdan's coaching them

Russia-Turkey was a 4 draw 2-2 whilst there were 2.5-1.5 wins for China, Norway & Poland against India, Egypt and the US. China & Poland lead on 4 with Russia on 3.

In the women's event Russia on 4 lead from India, Poland & Ukraine on 3.

Tomorrow's pairings in the men's event, ordered by match points/ game points:

USA [2MP, 4 GP] v China [4,6]
Egypt [0,2] v Poland [4, 5]
Ukraine [2, 4] v Russia [3, 5.5]
Turkey [2, 4] v Norway [2, 4]
India [0, 3] v Belarus [1, 2.5]

Seems that both events may already be virtually decided since China's men are by far the strongest and are up for it whereas Russia (four draws v Turkey?!) and Ukraine are probably not, while in the women's event the key match already occurred in round 1 with Russia (perhaps stimulated by the former Balmain watches ambassador being stripped of her wrist watch) walloping China.
I must say that this event makes a poor impression compared with the wonderful European team championships (no world teams then) of the early years in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I went to watch at Oberhausen 1961 and was also at Bath 1973, and recall the thrill of seeing the golden Soviets (8 boards then, and game points rather than match points) as well as the improving England team at Bath.

chess.com report

Pity the women's draw had China v Russia in the first round, but I suppose it shows it wasn't fixed