Olympiad

[Stewart Reuben]

JustinHorton>... Have any of the competitors complained of problems sleeping due to the extremely truncated night?<

A Gambian player complained of precisely this only yesterday. He says his room doesn't have curtains.
I mut admit I didn't think of this problem when extolling the virtues of Tromso over Bulgaria in 2010. I just thought many of the contestants would enjoy a new experience.

Martin Carpenter. I presume you realise that teams, with the same match score, are ranked on their adjusted Sonneborn-Berger score. In the middle of the table many teams will have the same number of match points.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The final word on the position where Howell's opponent resigned should go to Jacob Aagard:

"It was still a draw when Jakob resigned. Maybe even not so difficult to hold, though it looked hard optically."

[JustinHadi]

Bacrot - Ding Liren. What a game!

[Roger de Coverly]

Bacrot - Ding Liren. What a game!

Two exchanges down and the Stockfish at chessbomb claims a line with approximate equality. It's not the deepest analysis given that it's expected to come up with a verdict in about a second. The line was 24. .. c4 which has now been played.

[Tim Harding]

I find it amusing that Carlsen can be leading the Board 1 competition and still be underperforming.

...
It is a bit harsh to say Carlsen is underperforming. He hasn't been as spectacular as we hoped, granted, but he still beat Caruana, drew with Aronian as Black and is currently looking at a (very) small plus in the live ratings. (0.3)

Carlsen should almost certainly have lost to the Turk yesterday. The commentators were crying out for ...Rxd4 when Black messed up with ...a3 in time trouble.

Carlsen messed up a won position against Naiditsch when he lost all sense of danger in a pawn ending a pawn up.
Today he played Bird's Defence to the Lopez badly. As of 3pm he is 2 pawns down for nothing and White is a 2671 GM who is less likely to screw up than yesterday's opponent.

Anand must be enjoying this.

[MartinCarpenter]

I wouldn't expect Anand to pay much attention to how well/badly Carlsen plays in the Olympiad.

What surprised me was how many teams were in range of the lead this late on. If either France or China lose, they'll likely to be down to a tie for 10th to 15th or so. If they draw then there could well be a really huge pile up in the lead before the last round.

Just too many teams to properly sort out in 11 rounds I guess It'd be insane to play more of course. Hard enough to organise as it stands!

[JustinHorton]

I seem to remember an insanely complex tiebreak system from last time or the time before.

[Lewis Martin]

Carlsen should almost certainly have lost to the Turk yesterday. The commentators were crying out for ...Rxd4 when Black messed up with ...a3 in time trouble.

Carlsen messed up a won position against Naiditsch when he lost all sense of danger in a pawn ending a pawn up.
Today he played Bird's Defence to the Lopez badly. As of 3pm he is 2 pawns down for nothing and White is a 2671 GM who is less likely to screw up than yesterday's opponent.

Anand must be enjoying this.

But that's just it - Carlsen isn't playing main lines and playing different things. Let's be honest is he really going to be playing the Bird's Defence against Anand?

[JustinHorton]

Shape of a pear in Ann-Marie's game.

[EDIT: or rather, for her opponent. I seem to be reading the board the wrong way round!]

[Tim Harding]

Carlsen should almost certainly have lost to the Turk yesterday. The commentators were crying out for ...Rxd4 when Black messed up with ...a3 in time trouble.

Carlsen messed up a won position against Naiditsch when he lost all sense of danger in a pawn ending a pawn up.
Today he played Bird's Defence to the Lopez badly. As of 3pm he is 2 pawns down for nothing and White is a 2671 GM who is less likely to screw up than yesterday's opponent.

Anand must be enjoying this.

But that's just it - Carlsen isn't playing main lines and playing different things. Let's be honest is he really going to be playing the Bird's Defence against Anand?

No. I don't mean that, he will of course play a different repertoire in top individual tournaments and the world championship match, but Carlsen's judgment is in question. It must affect his confidence and his aura of invincibility and being a total endgame machine is particularly tarnished after the Naiditsch game. (Sorry about the typo in previous message - it wasn't a pawn ending; Carlsen went wrong in the rook and minor piece ending.)
I think Carlsen's weak play yesterday and (so far) today is a reaction to the Naiditsch disaster.

[Simon Brown]

If Carlsen doesn't win today he won't be best top board, as Mickey looks to be winning already and Topalov looks better.

[Lewis Martin]

13 moves played in Howell's game, and David has only 30 minutes left.

What is more shocking is that he is ahead on time! His opponent has only got 10!

[Roger de Coverly]

David Howell has met his match in terms of time shortage with an opponent leaving himself 15 minutes plus increment for the next 27 moves. David has the relative luxury of 30 minutes and according to the engine, a slightly better position.

I suppose it must help to usually be a Gruenfeld player. Playing the moves d4, c4 ,Nf3, e3, Be2 would not be regarded as a serious challenge by a regular Kings Indian player. In practice the game went off in an unusual direction as after 1. .. Nf6 2. .. g6 3. ..Bg7 4. .. 0-0, the move .. b6 was played.

[Phil Neatherway]

According to chess24.com, Howell has no time left and he has only played 31 moves.

[JustinHorton]

Nigel by contrast has no legal moves left.