Tentative conclusions at the end of the Olympiad
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 2:05 pm
Newspapers often like to list “Five Things we learnt” after big sporting events, perhaps because listing things uses up more column space and most journalists are writing in a hurry. I am not in a hurry and I have expressed some of my conclusions before. But who can object to a list? Here are my “Four Things we should learn after the Olympiad”.
1 Having players off-form hurts more than having players on form helps
This is true of most team events but especially the Olympiad. Simply, the further up you go, the harder it is to win the points but the easier it is to give them away. Even a 2650 player on form cannot win very many games against comparable opposition in the Olympiad but it is possible to have a bad run where one just carries on losing. The last round defeat against Cuba captured the problem perfectly: the three in form players were nonetheless held by capable Cuban opposition – capable opposition is everywhere these days – and the one player out of form fell. And so, despite having three players in contention for medals for the first time this century, England finished at its lowest position this century with two players markedly off form (albeit that the finishing position partly owes to the disproportionate effect of losing the last round).
This really has to be borne in mind by those who pick board orders. I said before the Olympiad that having Sadler so low down the order, in the transparent hope that he would produce an avalanche of wins as in the 1990s, was risky; the sort of decision made, perhaps, with an exaggerated hope of how well England might perform. If he was expected to be our second best player – and many people, myself included, did expect this – the team would have done better overall with him playing on board two. As it was, Sadler duly made one of the best scores for England in recent years on board four, but it is likely that our overall performance on board two was the very worst in modern history.
2 Youth still counts
We saw it everywhere. Runaway winners China had a team of players so young that the Western chess media has not actually had time to track some of them very well before the event. The secret of France, by far the best performing Western Europe country, must lies somewhere in the relative youth of its team as well as their Elo strength. Hungary too show signs of rejuvenation and looks able to cope without Judit Polgar in future, and a relatively youthful Indian team did just that without Anand. For England, the news is sombre (just imagine them coming in the top 5 without Adams!). In all probability our best players likely to be available for Olympiad chess are all over forty; and it may be that this time, even with the best board order and without the last round defeat England would probably have finished no higher than just in the top 20. Realism must be the watchword in future events, with a top 20 finish being seen as entirely respectable in Olympiad and European events, even if we do continue to be ranked ninth at the outset. This should be understood not just by selection committees and the International Director of the ECF but more broadly by ECF members. The way to support our players will be to congratulate them on a good top 20 finish, which will be easier done if we don’t constantly talk up their medal chances before each and every event.
3 England lose too often with White for a team of their ranking
It nonetheless remains an oddity that England should have fallen quite so far down the ranks with most of their players doing well. But one problem recurred which was a familiar and symptomatic one; that we are all too prone to losing games with White in big matches. In this last event, White losses prevented us from beating Vietnam and Germany and from holding Armenia and Cuba. Admittedly these were from the out of form players but when looks at past team events, too often White defeats have prevented us from beating strong opposition or from capitalising on a high position in the event. In the 2008 Olympiad a defeat for White (Howell v Gashimov) preventing us from beating Azerbaijan and it was still possible to have a top ten finish with a win against a Yugoslav team in the last round – but a loss from Short with White to Kozul (I think?) put paid to it. Yet both players were generally in good shape in that event as was Short again in 2012 when he lost to Torre, at a stage when England were unbeaten after eight rounds and looked as though it had a kind pairing against the Philippines. In fact England have not beaten a top ten opponent for many years, with the opportunity to beat Russia last year forfeited mainly by McShane’s tame loss with White to Svidler.
Only in one of these games did we get such a good position from the opening (Howell v Gashimov) that the colour seems quite irrelevant. In the other games we did not get an advantage from the opening and did not always have equality. Such a spate of White reversals would be unthinkable for many of our competitors. It may simply be that English players (except Adams and perhaps Sadler), due to an attachment to irregular openings or other reasons, have an insufficiently powerful White repertoire at this level. Some other teams seem to have regular training sessions before major events and this is perhaps something we should explore too.
4 The ECF still needs to revise its level of expenditure on the Olympiad and European Open and women’s teams
The point has been made before. We are a good team but so are many – far too many – others and we are more likely to decline before we improve. This should mean that the entirety of our international budget should not be put into the national teams (and as argued before, of the amount that is available for the national teams, we should not pore (say) 95% of it into the open team at the expense of the women). As Leonard Barden has noted we have much better chances of making medals at senior level and of course our only European champion in recent memory received zero funding from the ECF. If the national teams can be supported privately, then that would be wonderful; but both the International Director and Council must remember their broader responsibilities when dividing up their own budget.
NB I was unable to follow this last Olympiad as closely as I would have liked and would welcome any factual corrections.
1 Having players off-form hurts more than having players on form helps
This is true of most team events but especially the Olympiad. Simply, the further up you go, the harder it is to win the points but the easier it is to give them away. Even a 2650 player on form cannot win very many games against comparable opposition in the Olympiad but it is possible to have a bad run where one just carries on losing. The last round defeat against Cuba captured the problem perfectly: the three in form players were nonetheless held by capable Cuban opposition – capable opposition is everywhere these days – and the one player out of form fell. And so, despite having three players in contention for medals for the first time this century, England finished at its lowest position this century with two players markedly off form (albeit that the finishing position partly owes to the disproportionate effect of losing the last round).
This really has to be borne in mind by those who pick board orders. I said before the Olympiad that having Sadler so low down the order, in the transparent hope that he would produce an avalanche of wins as in the 1990s, was risky; the sort of decision made, perhaps, with an exaggerated hope of how well England might perform. If he was expected to be our second best player – and many people, myself included, did expect this – the team would have done better overall with him playing on board two. As it was, Sadler duly made one of the best scores for England in recent years on board four, but it is likely that our overall performance on board two was the very worst in modern history.
2 Youth still counts
We saw it everywhere. Runaway winners China had a team of players so young that the Western chess media has not actually had time to track some of them very well before the event. The secret of France, by far the best performing Western Europe country, must lies somewhere in the relative youth of its team as well as their Elo strength. Hungary too show signs of rejuvenation and looks able to cope without Judit Polgar in future, and a relatively youthful Indian team did just that without Anand. For England, the news is sombre (just imagine them coming in the top 5 without Adams!). In all probability our best players likely to be available for Olympiad chess are all over forty; and it may be that this time, even with the best board order and without the last round defeat England would probably have finished no higher than just in the top 20. Realism must be the watchword in future events, with a top 20 finish being seen as entirely respectable in Olympiad and European events, even if we do continue to be ranked ninth at the outset. This should be understood not just by selection committees and the International Director of the ECF but more broadly by ECF members. The way to support our players will be to congratulate them on a good top 20 finish, which will be easier done if we don’t constantly talk up their medal chances before each and every event.
3 England lose too often with White for a team of their ranking
It nonetheless remains an oddity that England should have fallen quite so far down the ranks with most of their players doing well. But one problem recurred which was a familiar and symptomatic one; that we are all too prone to losing games with White in big matches. In this last event, White losses prevented us from beating Vietnam and Germany and from holding Armenia and Cuba. Admittedly these were from the out of form players but when looks at past team events, too often White defeats have prevented us from beating strong opposition or from capitalising on a high position in the event. In the 2008 Olympiad a defeat for White (Howell v Gashimov) preventing us from beating Azerbaijan and it was still possible to have a top ten finish with a win against a Yugoslav team in the last round – but a loss from Short with White to Kozul (I think?) put paid to it. Yet both players were generally in good shape in that event as was Short again in 2012 when he lost to Torre, at a stage when England were unbeaten after eight rounds and looked as though it had a kind pairing against the Philippines. In fact England have not beaten a top ten opponent for many years, with the opportunity to beat Russia last year forfeited mainly by McShane’s tame loss with White to Svidler.
Only in one of these games did we get such a good position from the opening (Howell v Gashimov) that the colour seems quite irrelevant. In the other games we did not get an advantage from the opening and did not always have equality. Such a spate of White reversals would be unthinkable for many of our competitors. It may simply be that English players (except Adams and perhaps Sadler), due to an attachment to irregular openings or other reasons, have an insufficiently powerful White repertoire at this level. Some other teams seem to have regular training sessions before major events and this is perhaps something we should explore too.
4 The ECF still needs to revise its level of expenditure on the Olympiad and European Open and women’s teams
The point has been made before. We are a good team but so are many – far too many – others and we are more likely to decline before we improve. This should mean that the entirety of our international budget should not be put into the national teams (and as argued before, of the amount that is available for the national teams, we should not pore (say) 95% of it into the open team at the expense of the women). As Leonard Barden has noted we have much better chances of making medals at senior level and of course our only European champion in recent memory received zero funding from the ECF. If the national teams can be supported privately, then that would be wonderful; but both the International Director and Council must remember their broader responsibilities when dividing up their own budget.
NB I was unable to follow this last Olympiad as closely as I would have liked and would welcome any factual corrections.
