Squads for European Team Championships

[Mick Norris]

Greece 1 v England tomorrow

[Christopher Kreuzer]

England Open team currently still 17th, a massive 13 places outside their seeding. To put that into context, the next four largest differences between seeding and placing in the rankings after round 7 are: +9 (Finland), +8 (Turkey), -8 (Czech Republic) and +8 (Greece-Crete), the latter presumably being the Greek third team.

England are paired against Greece 1, having played Greece 2 earlier. Two wins in the last two rounds will probably get England into the top ten, but they may well have a harder than expected last round pairing, and Greece are no pushovers.

It is a pity that the losses by Jones and McShane were in matches where it made the difference. In fact, apart from the loss by Short against Greece 2, all the losses have made the difference in close matches. All the players losing rating points. Difficult to see any positives! (I am sure there are some.)

Heh. All five players have exactly three points each.

Is it too early to say that a different board order might have worked better?

[Brian Towers]

England Open team currently still 17th, a massive 13 places outside their seeding.

That's a bit harsh. They're in the 11-17 group on 8 points. They are 17th rather than 11th on account of poor board score. If they'd won one of the four matches they drew they would be in the 6-11 group. The margins are fine.

[NickFaulks]

If they'd won one of the four matches they drew they would be in the 6-11 group.

Just for accuracy, if they had won their most recent match that would be true. If they had won any of the previous ones, they would have had different opponents.

[LawrenceCooper]

Greece 1 v England tomorrow

Fingers crossed we improve on the match when I was captain in 2011

Bo. 8 England Rtg - 19 Greece Rtg 1½:2½
5.1 GM Adams, Michael 2734 - GM Banikas, Hristos 2620 ½ - ½
5.2 GM Short, Nigel D 2698 - GM Mastrovasilis, Dimitrios 2621 0 - 1
5.3 GM Howell, David W L 2633 - GM Papaioannou, Ioannis 2600 0 - 1
5.4 GM Jones, Gawain C B 2635 - GM Halkias, Stelios 2593 1 - 0

[NickFaulks]

Fingers crossed we improve on the match when I was captain in 2011

The Greeks have cheated. They've left out the chap who lost to Gawain and replaced him with an actual new, younger player.

[NickFaulks]

Looks like Grischuk may not be fully familiar with Korchnoi-Portisch, Hoogovens 1968. Mamedyarov really is my favourite among today's top players.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Fingers crossed we improve on the match when I was captain in 2011

The Greeks have cheated. They've left out the chap who lost to Gawain and replaced him with an actual new, younger player.

Who may also end up losing. Gawain is 1.88 'pawns' ahead after his opponent wasted time playing a knight from d7 to b6 and then back to d7.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Is this the point at which the rest of the team would steer for draws and let Gawain's game decide the match, or would it be better to wait a bit longer until it is even clearer?

(Adams at move 22, Short at move 23, Howell at move 16, Jones at move 20.)

[Jonathan Rogers]

question doesn't arise yet because there is so much play in all three games. It may become relevant later when more concrete possibilities arise in some of the games, eg of forcing repetitions etc.

[Brian Towers]

Is this the point at which the rest of the team would steer for draws and let Gawain's game decide the match, or would it be better to wait a bit longer until it is even clearer?

This is the point at which the other players should continue to try and find the best move in the position and play it.

Actually the "This is the point at which" is misleading. You should almost always try and find the best move (or one that wins if there are several) and play it. Playing for a draw, regardless of the position, is what weaker players do which ends up in them losing games they shouldn't. I'm speaking from years of experience as that weaker player.

[JustinHorton]

Academic question since most of Gawain's advantage has disappeared and once again the team are in a desperate struggle to draw against a lower-rated side.

[JustinHorton]

....though in ye-of-little-faith news, the onboard computers suddenly have Mickey's disadvantage smaller than Gawain's advantage

[LawrenceCooper]

Russia 0 Azerbaijan 3 atm

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The Azerbaijan result against Russia is astounding.

Had to laugh about the (excellent) England result, as when I first left the positions to go and get on with other things earlier this afternoon, Gawain was slightly ahead and Mickey struggling. Then when I looked about 40 minutes ago, it was Gawain only slightly ahead and Mickey had given up a knight and it looked like it might be enough for a draw. And I looked now, and it says Gawain is "+8" and Mickey is "0".

(It is worth looking at 50.Kc4 for Mickey's opponent [who missed it] and realising that it sometimes pays to look for intermezzos like that. Quite an amazing computer move - I wonder if Mickey saw that but went ahead anyway?)

(And Gawain's position was probably always winning - it would have taken incredible defence for his opponent to hold that position with that advanced pawn on d6.)