OLYMPIAD 2008 :):)

[David Robertson]

My unvarnished view (for what it's worth):

Bu v Nigel - Nigel was never better; looked dead but wriggled off the hook with some inventive scrambling. The N on c5 was enormous. Nigel's in great fighting form; it's good to see. But another day, he'd likely have gone down to a Bu's up. Great save of a half imo

David v Ni Hua - David laboured with structural and spatial disadvantages early on; was never ahead; probably was never critical either; and unravelled effectively by the first time check. A half with White v Ni Hua? Fair enough in my view, but to win the match he (or Adams) needed to win.

Li Chao v Gawain - Gawain never got a kick in for most of the game; but some enterprising counterplay conjured from very little towards the end offered a moment's illusion that disaster might be avoided. Never likely though.

Overall verdict: 1.5 - 2.5 is a bit better than par against China; they are strong - as we found in 2007. And judging from the play, the team gave it their best shot, albeit with their backs to the wall throughout. Finely balanced? Not really: the result could never have been 2.5 - 1.5 or even 2-2

David
Atticus CC

[Richard Bates]

My unvarnished view (for what it's worth):

Bu v Nigel - Nigel was never better; looked dead but wriggled off the hook with some inventive scrambling. The N on c5 was enormous. Nigel's in great fighting form; it's good to see. But another day, he'd likely have gone down to a Bu's up. Great save of a half imo

David v Ni Hua - David laboured with structural and spatial disadvantages early on; was never ahead; probably was never critical either; and unravelled effectively by the first time check. A half with White v Ni Hua? Fair enough in my view, but to win the match he (or Adams) needed to win.

Li Chao v Gawain - Gawain never got a kick in for most of the game; but some enterprising counterplay conjured from very little towards the end offered a moment's illusion that disaster might be avoided. Never likely though.

Overall verdict: 1.5 - 2.5 is a bit better than par against China; they are strong - as we found in 2007. And judging from the play, the team gave it their best shot, albeit with their backs to the wall throughout. Finely balanced? Not really: the result could never have been 2.5 - 1.5 or even 2-2

David
Atticus CC

Being purely statistical, expected score was about 1.6 so arguably not really "better than par".

[Mick Norris]

Richard

You may be right about the stats, but given how long the final game lasted, for which all credit to Gawain, I think we can be disappointed but pleased with the team's effort

[TomChivers]

Fwiw I felt Adams had a good version of the Wall and the draw was a bit disappointing, but that Short, Jones and Howell spent most of their games getting squeezed (although Howell did well to get such activity toward the end.) So I guess the overall result is a fair one. But there are reasons why I am here and they are there

[Jonathan Rogers]

Well perhaps you could at least be a commentator, Tom - I'd tend to agree with your take on England v China. Short was worse but managed to keep his disadavantage in the boundary of the drawing margin in chess. Unfortunately by the time it was clear that he would hold, Gawain was going down - it was pretty bad as soon as queens were exchanged, even though he managed to spin the game out to move 100 ...

Board four was always going to be our biggest problem, simply because Black against any of the top Chinese players is a tough assignment for anyone, let alone someone beginning to tire from previous exertions (see previous posts). If we had had White on evens we might have had a better chance; Adams would probably still have held with Black, and Short might have caused Bu some problems with White - Bu is not yet invincible, after all ... but we did need one and a half on the top two, I think. Unfortunately Wang Yue does look almost invincible these days, so we did not need our White against him on board one.

The Chinese are still quite unlike any other top team. There is very little chance of them getting a significant advantage in the opening, and they may be quite tolerant of small disadvantages with Black - as they were against us, I think. But as noted by others, there really is a "Chinese hour" around the fourth hour just before the time control, where they hold their Blacks or even start to creep forwards and grind away their equal or slightly better positions with White. The trouble with China is that you just cannot imagine where any of our wins will come from, and then you worry - are we really going to hold all the boards to a draw? . Yesterday's match followed the standard script. I don't criticise our players at all because they tried but the Chinese are simply better than us.

I see that we are playing Croatia today (a downfloat) but they seemed to have some problems adjusting the live games to the early morning start so I don't even know the composition of the teams. We might finish in the top ten with a good win.

[David Robertson]

One by-product of this Olympiad for Adams & Wang Yue is that Adams has shed 19, while Wang Yue has gained 14 Elo points. The effect is that Mickey drops out of the top 20 while Wang Yue enters the top 10 (for the first time maybe). His progress has been relentless this year - dull but relentless.

Short will clearly pick up swags of points; Howell too, I imagine. Don't know about Gawain; he's had several draws, albeit only one defeat

David
Atticus CC

[Mick Norris]

I see that we are playing Croatia today (a downfloat) but they seemed to have some problems adjusting the live games to the early morning start so I don't even know the composition of the teams. We might finish in the top ten with a good win.

Rest day today

It is not a bad draw as a couple of the Croatian players have not performed well

Short will have white and a chance to press for the win he needs to try and snatch the gold medal for board 2 and a team win would round off a good team performance

[Richard Bates]

One by-product of this Olympiad for Adams & Wang Yue is that Adams has shed 19, while Wang Yue has gained 14 Elo points. The effect is that Mickey drops out of the top 20 while Wang Yue enters the top 10 (for the first time maybe). His progress has been relentless this year - dull but relentless.

Short will clearly pick up swags of points; Howell too, I imagine. Don't know about Gawain; he's had several draws, albeit only one defeat

David
Atticus CC

I reckon David picks up about 9pts and Gawain 1.

[Mick Norris]

See
http://www.dresden2008.de/site/de/medie ... 8/main.htm

[JustinHorton]

Agree with you there Ben. Can't be too inspiring to female English players to have a place taken off them, or for English players to subsidise someone only recently arrived in this country.

I don't agree. (Declaration of interest: I'm an ex-pat and may therefore be biased, or at least see things from a different point of view.) Firstly, if the full team was out (i.e. Susan and Harriet could play) then nobody who's been excluded would be included anyway - so nobody can really complain that they didn't make the team. Secondly, does anybody think Irish chess is worse off for having Baburin in the Olympiad team?

[David Robertson]

The Dutch clearly do. They have not selected their two highest-rated players (Tiviakov & Sokolov). On the other hand, Spain have gone a different route (picking Shirov & Kramrakulov). It's an awkward business, even before one starts on Scotland, the USA or, yet more sensitive territory, Israel.

As for Dagne, she's married an Englishman; presumably her new toddler is English; if she changed her surname, likely her critics would disappear - as they should in any case.

But nevertheless, it remains awkward. Is Caruana American or Italian really? And how would we feel if Radjubov, Karjakin, Perimarjan Negi & Wang Hao settled (for presumably tactical reasons) in Wales?

David
Atticus CC

[Mick Norris]

The Dutch clearly do. They have not selected their two highest-rated players (Tiviakov & Sokolov). On the other hand, Spain have gone a different route (picking Shirov & Kramrakulov). It's an awkward business, even before one starts on Scotland, the USA or, yet more sensitive territory, Israel.

As for Dagne, she's married an Englishman; presumably her new toddler is English; if she changed her surname, likely her critics would disappear - as they should in any case.

But nevertheless, it remains awkward. Is Caruana American or Italian really? And how would we feel if Radjubov, Karjakin, Perimarjan Negi & Wang Hao settled (for presumably tactical reasons) in Wales?

David
Atticus CC

The Dutch had a funding problem, I think, in relation to their Olympiad team, which may account for why the 2 ovs are missing

If someone settles here, I am happy to see them play for England when eligible to do so - but I don't want to see English Chess supporting those who play for other countries by allowing them into the British Chess Championships

[Ben Purton]

Again who was Ingrid supporting on Wednesday night????


Ben

[Ben Purton]

I mean I would never disagree the majority of the teams claims, but not one has an English parent out of the whole 5.
Im all for cosmopolitan countries, but if you can find me a proper English team with those stats, Ill be very impressed. I mean Jov grew up here, and I played with both her sisters for years in junior teams etc. I think the fact your ignoring is shes played for another country before. Thats something whilst youve gone in to a country at senior level you cant change in football etc.

Ben

[JustinHorton]

Again who was Ingrid supporting on Wednesday night????

What possible business is it of yours?

Who invited you to conduct a loyalty test?