39th Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk 2010 (the chess)

[Ben Purton]

Ukraine V France
Russia V China
Israel V US

[LozCooper]

I'm sure that your stats are quite correct Alex,but my point is that you have to be a helluva lot stronger these days to achieve those high rankings

Well if other countries can do it, then we should aspire to too!

Of course and if we did achieve it in todays changed,far far tougher climate,then it would be an achievement incomparably greater than any before it!

I think we have the players at the top, now all we need is the funding to have professional captains/coaches and give the players support and training throughout the year like other federations can. In today's match England have an inactive 2316 IM as captain and Russia 3 had Khalifman!

[Maxim Devereaux]

If he loses, he can still make a norm, but will need to beat a 2466 (if he plays Hansen) or a 2531 (if he plays Rasmussen) in order to make it.

Still assuming I was right with my numbers, even if he wins tomorrow, Sam is going to be short of a norm by a matter of 1 or 2 rating points on performance, since the top board of Mongolia (if he plays) is 2460, so it will come down to needing a win in the last round also, most likely (or a draw with roughly a 2620+).

He also has another Black, but this doesn't worry me too much, particularly as the Mongolian number one has so far managed only 0.5/4 with White, but 3/4 with Black (including a win over Beliavsky).

[Michael Jones]

Congratulations to Gawain, Q vs R is a difficult one to win and he made it look trivially easy.

Were the women aiming for some sort of record for highest average number of moves in a match? 138, 110 and 87 - makes the board 3 players look like slackers for taking a repetition after a mere 53!

[Mark Howitt]

Well it'd be nice to have more funding for our players (although bear in mind most other federations have very little 'funding' too, probably even smaller than England) but if Short had been playing today we'd have had more chance of winning.

[Alex Holowczak]

Well it'd be nice to have more funding for our players

In which case, sign up here!

[Mark Howitt]

Lol obv not that nice! I have put in my fair share of funding for chess over the years, but if you read all my posts on here, and chessninja if you're feeling especially geekish, you'll see why I'm v unlikely to put in much/any more. Chess holds little appeal for people once they leave uni and for many little before then in this country.

[Mick Norris]

Well it'd be nice to have more funding for our players (although bear in mind most other federations have very little 'funding' too, probably even smaller than England) but if Short had been playing today we'd have had more chance of winning.

Yes, you advocate playing the top 4, so dropping Gawain who has been our best performer

Motylev plays the Petroff a lot and would be very tough for anyone to beat

I thought the team did well today, and Nigel may well be doing a better job for English chess elsewhere

Bets of luck to all the players in both our teams for the next rounds, and good luck to Sam Collins too

[Jonathan Rogers]

Assuming his FIDE Delegate business is over, Short should return to the team - after all we are playing the Netherlands! It is just over a year since he demolished their entire squad at Simpsons. Obviously it is Howell who should drop, and not Gawain. Gawain would have a tough game if Black v Giri, but will thoroughly deserve a medal if he comes through.

[Mark Howitt]

If Short plays on two, then McShane could have played on three, changing the whole match dynamic. If I was the team captain and surmaised Jones had a lot more energy than Howell as well as form, I may well have played Jones actually- there's less difference between those two than other players and Jones gets good results against players rated a bit lower than him.

[Matthew Turner]

I think England should be working towards giving Gawain the best possible chance of a medal. That probably means resting him tomorrow.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I had thought about that, but there is no guarantee that he will win the last game. Suppose he draws. Then he may lose ground against his rivals (one of whom has a performance of just one point difference) who will have given themselves two chances to go plus one, or even plus two in the final two rounds. He needs to be in a stronger medal position to be able to afford to rest, I think. Shame about the likely tough pairing but he is going for a medal, and he could have played tougher opposition than he has done already, to be fair.

[Michael Yeo]

As John Saunders pointed out a long way back, the rules for Board Prizes stipulate that one must play a minimum of 8 games. Resting Gawain would be a sure way of making sure that he didn't win a medal! In any case, given their last game together (which I will leave you to find), I would be very nervous about giving Howell Black v Giri which is another reason for Gawain to play.

[Matthew Turner]

Michael,
Apologies you are indeed right. I had thought you had to play 7 games (did this used to be the case?) I hope the England party know the rules better than me and of course Gawain should definitely play.

[John Saunders]

The rules seem clear but I think 7 games may have been the minimum for the lowest board in earlier years.

It is of course not unknown for FIDE's website to show outdated data.

Edit: Had a look at the 2008 results on chess-results.com and couldn't find any board prize winners with fewer than eight games played.