English Chess Forum

Fide press officer Yannick Pelletier advises me that he has just published this tweet:

USA-England ends 2-2 with 4 draws. The live transmission regrettably broke in this match after the start and could not be reestablished without interrupting the match. We're working on finding the technical reason, so that it does not happen again.

Yannick Pelletier (reported by Leonard Barden) wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 07, 2019 1:41 pm

The live transmission regrettably broke in this match after the start and could not be reestablished without interrupting the match. We're working on finding the technical reason, so that it does not happen again.

Shouldn't there be an emergency backup consisting of an arbiter being asked to observe the games, record the moves and then have these input to update the feed? There was some farce back in 2000 at the Istanbul Olympiad were players were asked to reset all the positions and then replay the moves that had previously been played. That was in the opening rather than after an hour or two of play.

Wei Yi survived but Russia still won the match so are leading the tournament, with England, USA and India joint second.

Tomorrow it's Russia-England, India-China and USA-Kazakhstan.

I guess Jon Speelman is not getting a game until we play Egypt. He would probably like some games before playing top board in the World Senior Teams next month.

England's games were input manually so can now be played through.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 07, 2019 1:53 pm

Shouldn't there be an emergency backup consisting of an arbiter being asked to observe the games, record the moves and then have these input to update the feed? There was some farce back in 2000 at the Istanbul Olympiad were players were asked to reset all the positions and then replay the moves that had previously been played. That was in the opening rather than after an hour or two of play.

I remember being asked to do that in Gibraltar. I think that it was in 2005.

I had to cover two boards, flitting from one to the next. Another arbiter was doing two other boards.

Periodically we had to take the moves backstage and rush back, bumping into each other as we went.

We were very successful at one thing - disturbing the players.

It wasn't long before Chief Arbiter David Welch told us to stop.

It does sometimes happen that the players get forgotten about. I had to speak to an arbiter at the Euro Club Cup to stop him updating the score-sheet right next to a time-scramble in a way which was obviously distracting.

Round 3 report from Peter Doggers. Nepo's win over Yu Yangyi is naturally featured being the decisive game in the Russia - China match in the Open. However, in the the women's section, the Chinese player, Tingjie Lei sacrificed her queen on successive moves to create a masterpiece of a game vs the Kazakh, Bibisara Assaubayeva.

Bo. 9 Russia Rtg - 5 England Rtg 0 : 0
3.1 GM Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2771 - GM Adams, Michael 2708
3.2 GM Grischuk, Alexander 2771 - GM Mcshane, Luke J 2661
3.3 GM Andreikin, Dmitry 2725 - GM Howell, David W L 2693
3.4 GM Artemiev, Vladislav 2736 - GM Jones, Gawain C B 2681

I did wonder if Karjakin would miss today

Jones-Artemiev didn't take long to smoke the peace pipe.

Tim Harding wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 08, 2019 9:44 am

Jones-Artemiev didn't take long to smoke the peace pipe.

That one puzzles me, although I assume it is consistent with the overall team plan. 10.f4 is a viable alternative, which is played in high level games and sometimes White wins. Dariusz Swiercz lost against it last year.

Mamedyarov - Radjabov games have ended like this both ways round!

Adams accepts draw when engine shows him +2 and when McShane, the only one still going, stands worse against Grischuk.

Leonard Barden wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:57 am

Adams accepts draw when engine shows him +2 and when McShane, the only one still going, stands worse against Grischuk.

It's not obvious what his winning attempt is from that position, though.

IM Jack Rudd wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:09 pm

Leonard Barden wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:57 am

Adams accepts draw when engine shows him +2 and when McShane, the only one still going, stands worse against Grischuk.

It's not obvious what his winning attempt is from that position, though.

31...Rb8 32 Re2 f5 is the line given with +2.14 on chessbomb and +1.71 on chess 24.

We've reached the time control at move 40 and Luke looks like he's holding.

Leonard Barden wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:57 am

Adams accepts draw when engine shows him +2 and when McShane, the only one still going, stands worse against Grischuk.

This looks to me like a variant on the "move after the time control is always a blunder" syndrome.

The postion has been level for a while, but a draw cannot be agreed in less than 30 moves. Nepomniachtchi, who had been planning for a while to offer a draw on move 31, makes a poor move before doing so. Adams accepts without realising that he suddenly stands much better.