39th Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk 2010 (the chess)

[Keith Arkell]

Can't Short play Bh5 to swap all the pieces, then play g5? Is that a win?

I'm assuming that Smeets believes(knows?) that this is a draw

[Eoin Devane]

Has anyone any thoughts on Sam Collins' game? http://ugra-chess.com/liveboard?gameid= ... 371&tmnt=1

He's got a queen plus five pawns against two rooks, a knight and two pawns. I guess the plan's got to be to try and roll the three connected passers on the kingside through, but is he going to be able to do that? It seems he has to win to keep up any chance of the norm.

[Alex Holowczak]

Im 99% sure the pawn ending would just be a draw if all the pieces come off...

Just looked on that Shredder online thing, and it agrees that black can't force a win. If everything were one file to the left...

[Roger de Coverly]

Can't Short play Bh5 to swap all the pieces, then play g5? Is that a win?

Not according to the Shredder tablebase.
http://www.shredderchess.com/online-che ... abase.html

You can't avoid getting to K+P against K with defending King having enough space to draw.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Can't Short play Bh5 to swap all the pieces, then play g5? Is that a win?

http://tinyurl.com/no-its-a-draw

[Alex Holowczak]

Alright, I get the gist.

[Steve Rooney]

Can't Short play Bh5 to swap all the pieces, then play g5? Is that a win?

http://tinyurl.com/no-its-a-draw

Very witty.

I think Steve that the difficulty for Black is in finding a way to approach with the K,while at the same time shielding it from a load of checks.Somehow he will have to Bring in the K and B together.Of course it is a draw,but there is a little bit of discomfort because B wants to play ...g5(my favourite chess move) and Bd7 and White will then have nowhere for his K

Thanks Keith, an explanation in simple English is much more memorable than lines of analysis. I can follow this idea. If only there endgame reference works were written in this way.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Has anyone any thoughts on Sam Collins' game? http://ugra-chess.com/liveboard?gameid= ... 371&tmnt=1

He's got a queen plus five pawns against two rooks, a knight and two pawns. I guess the plan's got to be to try and roll the three connected passers on the kingside through, but is he going to be able to do that? It seems he has to win to keep up any chance of the norm.

practical winning chances, I think. I'm glad he removed white's b2 pawn, just to make sure that white is left with a slightly depressing defence and no chance of anything else. But I doubt that even the computers can "tell" us the "right" result just yet.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Ukraine apparently romping to the finish. Even if Israel do win v USA, they may need to beat Ukraine by 3.5 - 0.5 in the final round in order to snatch gold.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Can't Short play Bh5 to swap all the pieces, then play g5? Is that a win?

http://tinyurl.com/no-its-a-draw

Very witty.

Thank you. Could someone please PM me Nigel Short's e-mail address.

[Keith Arkell]

Why 3.5 - 0.5?

[Keith Arkell]

Tie break isn't game points(as it should be).It's some convoluted thing that is impossible to work out until all of the results have come in

[Alex Holowczak]

some convoluted thing

"Olympiad-Sonneborn-Berger-Tie-Break without lowest result (Khanty-Mansiysk)"

Ukraine lead Israel 255.5-238.5 after 9 rounds on that tie-break. I have absolutely no idea whether that's a large margin or not. Presumably it's the sum of their opponents' gamepoints (counting half if it's a draw), not including the opponent with the lowest number of gamepoints.

[Jonathan Rogers]

oh , ok .... but Israel have played terrible opposition. (I use the word "played" to cover Yemen ...) Ah, so maybe even Ukraine could get away with losing 4-0. It would be more of a case of Israel needing a (bare) win for silver, perhaps.

The women still just about look like squeaking past Canada, whose much under-rated board one put them in the match by beating Jovanka. But Kanwal played an excellent game, perhaps the most stylish of all the womens' games so far? An exchange sac nicely ties up the opponent who cannot move either her queen or rook on f6 on move 30, and so her opponent moves her other rook to the most natural square - but ...

http://ugra-chess.com/livegames?gameid=100010023&tmnt=2

[Eoin Devane]

some convoluted thing

"Olympiad-Sonneborn-Berger-Tie-Break without lowest result (Khanty-Mansiysk)"

Ukraine lead Israel 255.5-238.5 after 9 rounds on that tie-break. I have absolutely no idea whether that's a large margin or not. Presumably it's the sum of their opponents' gamepoints (counting half if it's a draw), not including the opponent with the lowest number of gamepoints.

I think it's probably the sum of the overall scores (in match points) of each opponent that the team in question has played against multiplied by the score (out of 4) that the team in question made against that opponent.

Edit: From the name, I guess they also omit the lowest term from this sum, or the team against whom the team in question had the worst result, or something like that.

Edit: The "without lowest result" bit seems to be a change from what was used in Dresden, which was described as just "Olympiad Sonneborn Berger Tie Break".