2016 Olympiad - Baku

[Gary Kenworthy]

Tony's wins in the Olympiad. Olympiad only. Try when he was a reserve board, he also sub'd and won against the USA. I commented at the time because he had been described as over the hill and similar un-nice words. I retorted back what about his wins v Russia and the USA?. (probably CIS, or Russia, not the Soviet Union.).
rgds GK

[Paolo Casaschi]

Tony's wins in the Olympiad. Olympiad only. Try when he was a reserve board, he also sub'd and won against the USA. I commented at the time because he had been described as over the hill and similar un-nice words. I retorted back what about his wins v Russia and the USA?. (probably CIS, or Russia, not the Soviet Union.).
rgds GK

Those are the only wins of Miles against Spassky in chessgames.com, their database is usually comprehensive and olympiad are usually well documented.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Paolo, olimpbase have Miles beating Spassky in the 1978 Olympiad in Buenos Aires:

http://www.olimpbase.org/1978/1978fa05.html#urs

That was the match where England and the Soviet Union drew 2-2, arguably a decisive factor in the Soviet Union coming second in that Olympiad behind Hungary (the difference was a single game point, the Soviet Union lost to Germany [where Pfleger beat Polugaevsky] and beat Hungary; but the Soviet Union only drew with England whereas Hungary beat England; the Soviet Union drawing with Sweden was the other big upset):

http://www.olimpbase.org/1978/1978fa.html

The game by Miles is here:

http://www.olimpbase.org/pgn4web/analys ... EN1SU1.PGN

That should be on chessgames.com and/or annotated in various places or collections - is it not?

[Matt Mackenzie]

I thought someone would get the Penrose one! There is one more English player in the list, try and work it out before reading the list below.

The Penrose win stands out, because aside from the Alexander win against Bronstein, the wins in any event between an English player and a Soviet player are few and far between.

The win by Alexander over Bronstein was at Hastings.

In the Olympiads, the win by Miles is surely famous as well? Maybe someone will remember that one.

If you mean 1e4 a6!?! that wasn't the Olympiads, but the 1980 European team championships in Sweden.

(when England came second, still one of their best ever results)

Ah right, you mean Spassky not Karpov - of course he sat out the 1978 event just after his gruelling WC win. Korchnoi, in contrast, went straight to the Olympiad as top board for Switzerland - his first outing for them - and did brilliantly.

[Gary Kenworthy]

Just taking the opportunity about Tony Miles contributions to chess in these islands. B H Wood of Sutton Coldfield used to raise funds for elite players via his column in the Daily Telegraph. Miles was one target for help. Tony was obviously aware.
There have been several mystery benefactors to chess on an unknown basis. Indirect channeling, through third parties, rather than using say a BCF style committee. Because there have been many issues that way. (some issues are known).

Rather than wait for a pseudo 30 year rule, and nobody around to make the point, Tony Miles was one of those folks. For instance Nigel Johnson might have kick-started Slough for the first 4NCL, but it was soon Tony (Slough captain) splitting the costs and helping the 4NCL grow. [Lots of threats to the 4NCL had occurred]. Then Tony starting footing every bill, not Nigel Johnson (who was the public face, and doing more the marketing and dealing with hotels). Tony used to turn up at Slough club to help out in a number of ways.

Tony was also a great coach, giving his time free. The late Mike Fox had a number of problems with a BCF junior director called Jones. Tony helped out a number of times. [Many other junior organisers had similar problems with Jones]. Tony was great at Birmingham Checkmates, and you still see the names and results for his legacy.
He also helped several other chess players when their luck was down.
rgds (FM) Gary Kenworthy.

[Mick Norris]

I thought someone would get the Penrose one! There is one more English player in the list, try and work it out before reading the list below.

The full list (probably better done as a comprehensive list of anyone who ever won a game against a Soviet/Russian player in an Olympiad):

Barcza
Byrne
Duckstein
Ftacnik
Georgiev
Gligoric
Hubner
Kasimdzhanov
Ljubojevic (twice)
Miles
Nakamura
Padevsky
Penrose
Pfelger
Quinteros
Seirawan (twice)
Smejkal
Topalov
Uhlmann
Unzicker
Vallejo Pons

(One of Spassky's losses was while playing for France.)
(Not sure if Vallejo Pons is alphabetised under 'V' or 'P')

Having established the 3 who beat Kasparov, the 3 who beat Kramnik had to be Nakamura (Istanbul 2012), Kasimdzhanov & Vallejo Pons (Tromso 2014) - though I had to look up where and when

[Alan Walton]

Akshaya had a splendid score, especially as she had black so often, though her style probably makes the colour less important. I am slightly surprised her school is happy for her to miss at least a week of the new school year.

It was a good score, but her expected score against that field was 6.8/10 and that is calculated using her low rating; if her previous rating of 2288 was used I suspect the 7.5/10 score would have been below the expected score

[Kevin Thurlow]

Petrosian played 129 games and only lost one.
Bronstein played 49 games and lost one.
Spassky played 135 games and lost two.
Smyslov played 113 games and lost two.
Tal played 101 games and lost two.
Karpov played 68 games and lost two.
Botvinnik played 73 games and lost three.
Kasparov played 82 games and lost three.
Kramnik (before the 2016 Olympid) had played 73 and lost three.
Kramnik (after the 2016 Olympiad) has played 81 and lost three.
Polugaevsky played 76 games and lost four.

It's worth remembering that they were (or are) quite good players! The bottom board sometimes out-rated most of the non-USSR players. Their 1966 team was Petrosian, Spassky, Tal, Stein with Korchnoi and Polugaevsky as the two reserves. 1964, it was Petrosian, Botwinnik, Smyslov, Keres, with Stein and Spassky as reserves. 1960 was even more extreme, Tal, Botwinnik, Keres, Korchnoi, with reserves Smyslov and Petrosian - four world champions and two who should have been. In fact, Penrose scored the only win against that USSR team (+52=26-1), which won all twenty(!) of its matches. Draw-Meister Petrosian scored +11=2-0.

Obviously it's a magnificent record, but their dominance was absolute then.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Speelman's take on the Olympiad:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/from-baku- ... -column-19

[Carl Hibbard]

Speelman's take on the Olympiad:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/from-baku- ... -column-19

The stupid pop up is so annoying and the new games replay causes some performance issues.

[Joshua Gibbs]

Speelman's take on the Olympiad:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/from-baku- ... -column-19

The stupid pop up is so annoying and the new games replay causes some performance issues.

Ablock?

[NickFaulks]

if you are looking at ten years time might the team be Jones, Howell, Hawkins, Pert (N)

Who won't be especially young themselves.

[NickFaulks]

Just out of interest, when did the board medal places switch from being decided by % score to rating performance?

When Kasparov wouldn't otherwise have got a prize.

[JustinHorton]

yep - let's not get excited - top10 is fine.

The commetators just discussed the Japan incident said it was ipad and iphone - but no chess software ... arbiters decision to default (no device allowed in the playing area) but not to evict from event. Tough luck indeed for the individual ... but really no reason to bring anythign from the hotel room surely?

Paul

More from Alex Colovic here. As he suggests, odd that this incident doesn't seem to have been more widely discussed.

[NickFaulks]

More from Alex Colovic here. As he suggests, odd that this incident doesn't seem to have been more widely discussed.

I asked about this at the time, but anyone who really knew the facts wasn't telling. Superficially, it would be very surprising if this player beat a GM - not impossible, of course, but when he is then found to have technology in his bag... I'd say that he was lucky not to be expelled.