44th Olympiad, Chennai 28 July to 10 August 2022

[MJMcCready]

Morozevich was only an IM at the time. Hard to imagine.

[MJMcCready]

Do we have the pairings out for tomorrow yet?

[LawrenceCooper]

Do we have the pairings out for tomorrow yet?

Women yes, open no.

[MJMcCready]

Okay, soon then.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thanks Loz and Roger. For the record, the 15 India GMs (all still undefeated, though some have not had strong opposition yet) are here:

http://chess-results.com/tnr653631.aspx ... ND&flag=30

I must confess I did not recognise them all (though I did recognise most of them); I had never heard of Karthikeyan for example, or Abhimanyu Puranik (not sure which name is the given one there). There are a lot more India GMs than that, though. I do wonder what the selection process was like and how they decided who played in which teams?

India 1:

1. GM Pentala Harikrishna 2720 (age 36)
2. GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 2714 (age 27)
3. GM Arjun Erigaisi 2689 (age 18)
4. GM Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan 2659 (age 24)
5. GM Krishnan Sasikiran 2638 (age 41)

India 2:

1. GM Dommaraju Gukesh 2684 (age 16)
2. GM Nihal Sarin 2651 (age 18)
3. GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa 2648 (age 16)
4. GM Adhiban Baskaran 2598 (age 29)
5. GM Raunak Sadhwani 2611 (age 16)

India 3:

1. GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly 2608 (age 39)
2. GM Sethuraman Panayappan Sethuraman 2623 (age 29)
3. GM Abhijeet Gupta 2627 (age 32)
4. GM Karthikeyan Murali 2613 (age 23)
5. GM Abhimanyu Puranik 2612 (age 22)

For the record, the captains of the teams are all GMs as well:

India 1: Srinath Narayanan 2559 (age 28)
India 2: Ramachandran (R. B.) Ramesh 2472 (age 46)
India 3: Tejas Bakre 2413 (age 41)

I had forgotten how young Gukesh still is (he seems to have been around for ages, but became a GM aged 12, like Karjakin). A good choice to head up the India 2 team, with fellow teenagers Sarin, Praggnanandhaa and Sadhwani, with Adhiban the 'old man' of the team (I wonder how tempting it was to go for an all-teenager line up by putting Erigaisi in the India 2 team instead? Maybe his playing style or openings fits the India 1 team's strategy better?). Not sure which GMs have been coached by whom either, that might have played a role in how the teams were assembled (hasn't Ramesh coached nearly all the younger GMs in those teams?). I wouldn't put it past India 2 to give it a really good shot at trying to win the event, or at least getting some form of medals.

EDIT: India 2 have Spain in round 5, so presumably the run of consecutive 4-0 wins will come to an end.

[LawrenceCooper]

Okay, soon then.

Yes, now published.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Here is another one for the statisticians.

Average age of the India teams is: India 1 (29.2); India 2 (19); India 3 (29).

So all three India teams have an average age below 30 (not that remarkable), and the India 2 team have an average age below 20.

Has there ever been an Olympiad team with an age average that low? Surely some form of record?

(And what about the converse - what has been the oldest-ever Olympiad team by average age? I suspect England before Nigel Short stopped playing for the team would have been one of the contenders, but probably not the record holder. That is probably some team further down the rankings.)

EDIT: For those who want proper coverage of the India teams (not the bare bones I gave above), there is a very good article here from a leading Indian newspaper that also profiles the India women teams:

Chess Olympiad 2022: Indian chess player profiles, form, Elo ratings and records

[John Moore]

Now it gets much harder for England with a very tough and experienced Armenian team in the next round.

[J T Melsom]

John

a chance for you to praise David Howell for his 100% score before the Olympiad bingo card comes out and there are complaints about time management

[JustinHorton]

India 2 appear to be leading the Olympiad on board points, with 5 teams on maximum match points (including England in third).

Fourth?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

India 2 appear to be leading the Olympiad on board points, with 5 teams on maximum match points (including England in third).

Fourth?

Oh. Maybe Israel or Armenia hadn't finished their match when I was looking? Sorry about that.

[Matthew Turner]

Conor Murphy is having a decent event so far

[Christopher Kreuzer]

He is. And I just noticed David Howell is on 4/4!

[John Moore]

John

a chance for you to praise David Howell for his 100% score before the Olympiad bingo card comes out and there are complaints about time management

Yes indeed - well done to David but I am among the first to express doubts when he tries to play half the game om increments, Anyway for the moment - great.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Very impressive but David's opponent missed a shot with Rb8 in the middlegame (because ...Qxb8 Ne7 mate). Not at all obvious though it would in fact have made sense of his previous moves.