2012 Olympiad results and games

[James Coleman]

That's a good point, however, yes.

[Alex Holowczak]

The result has now been corrected (presumably! ) to a draw.

[Gerard Killoran]

Mark Crowther confirms it was a draw 2-2. Site at error yet again.

[Alex Holowczak]

Mark Crowther confirms it was a draw 2-2. Site at error yet again.

I don't think the site was at error.

It seems to me that they have a system where when the arbiter does the "King thing" with the live boards, it automatically updates the results, and hence the website. That's excellent technology.

Equally, if the arbiter (or the players, who may do it for him before he can) makes a mistake with where they put their Kings, then the result appears incorrectly everywhere. It then gets amended when the results are inevitably checked later on.

There are lots of potential things that could have gone wrong in that process. People demand information quickly these days - that's fine, but you have to accept that this sometimes means information gets put out before it's checked. I think this is a case in point.

[David Sedgwick]

Phew! I was starting to fear mobilus interuptus (spelling Sean Hewitt's, not mine).

I remember from Turin Olympiad 2006 that this was a bit of a palaver. If, as the arbiter, you put the kings on the wrong squares even momentarily, you had to report the mistake to your Senior Arbiter, who then had to go to a central office to correct the result. Inevitably this took several minutes, as has been the case just now. Needless to say, you didn't make yourself very popular with your Senior Arbiter if this happened very often.

[Paul Dargan]

Must be lots of credit for a really good save there from Nigel.

[Roger de Coverly]

I would find white agreeing a draw without playing it out equally as strange as black resigning

White had less than a minute. Perhaps he suddenly saw, or thought he saw, ways to lose. It's also possible that both players had seen drawing lines and didn't bother to play one of them out. Had it been played under rules such as London Classic where you need the arbiter to agree as well, would they have been asked to play until the draw was pretty obvious?

[Roger de Coverly]

Equally, if the arbiter (or the players, who may do it for him before he can) makes a mistake with where they put their Kings, then the result appears incorrectly everywhere. It then gets amended when the results are inevitably checked later on.

DGT did seem to make signalling the result far too complicated for its own good. Just following a convention of putting one king in the centre of the board for a win, or both kings for a draw would have been simpler.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Equally, if the arbiter (or the players, who may do it for him before he can) makes a mistake with where they put their Kings, then the result appears incorrectly everywhere. It then gets amended when the results are inevitably checked later on.

DGT did seem to make signalling the result far too complicated for its own good. Just following a convention of putting one king in the centre of the board for a win, or both kings for a draw would have been simpler.

It would have been no such thing. How do you tell the board that the game has stopped?

[Colin Patterson]

From the live video, I think one of the players pushed one king centre and the other nearly but not quite centre, hence the wrong result registered. An arbiter reached over and corrected it, but apparently too late.

[Roger de Coverly]

It would have been no such thing. How do you tell the board that the game has stopped?

A button marked "game over". Or obvious illegal moves like putting a white pawn on a1 and a black one on a8. If the clock can tell the board the time remaining, it can tell the board the game has finished. So a multitude of design possibilities.

The method as used doesn't cleanly signal end of game when the King to the centre convention is actually a legal move.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Four daws as predicted then! Great to see us cope under pressure, and I think it worth pointing out that we have only drawn matches with Black on odds so far - which in my view is a bit like drawing a game with Black. I think our chances are generally better when Adams has White (basically, because Adams will always use a white to better effect than our board four. But perhaps this is particularly true of this olympiad where Gawain has made nothing with his whites so far, and Short has made a lot).

One great thing about this forum is that I can just lazily ask whether someone else can look at our stats over the last three years and compare our matches with Adams as White with those where Adams was Black, and the likelihood is that someone will!

[Jonathan Rogers]

Not many surprises that catch my eye today. Armenia won a match by 2.5-1.5 for the 4,565th time (see above on gamepoints v matchpoints) and a few minutes after we praised the new-look Kramnik with Black, he agreed a draw (though to be fair he seemed to have little choice). Croatia won against France, against the odds but the win cropped up, sad to say, on board four. Holland won 4-0 for the second day and might now be ready to "Bermuda" party. Ireland fought very well against the odds v Israel, much as our women did v Armenia, and Scotland and Wales won matches to get themselves back on course.

[Alex Holowczak]

One great thing about this forum is that I can just lazily ask whether someone else can look at our stats over the last three years and compare our matches with Adams as White with those where Adams was Black, and the likelihood is that someone will!

In 2007, England went 1-2-2 with Adams as white, and 2-0-1 with Adams as black.
In 2008, England went 4-1-1 with Adams as white, and 2-2-0 with Adams as black.
In 2009, England went 1-0-3 with Adams as white, and 2-2-0 with Adams as black.
In 2010, England went 4-2-0 with Adams as white, and 1-2-2 with Adams as black.
In 2011, England went 2-1-2 with Adams as white, and 1-1-2 with Adams as black.

In total, over the 5 years, I make it 12-6-7 with white, and 8-7-5 with black.

(Scores written in the form W-D-L)

[Jonathan Rogers]

Thanks (for many reasons)!

A bit better then, probably. Interesting to see that he has had five extra Whites over that time, in fact.

Edit or maybe it's equal after all, because it seems to be 12-6-8 with White. He has had six extra Whites then!