2012 Olympiad results and games

[Alex Holowczak]

Not in round 7 it won't: http://results.chessolympiadistanbul.co ... =1&flag=30

England playing Georgia - not a bad draw considering who else we could have played on that scoregroup.

[Andrew Bak]

Olympiad Round 6 Report

[Alex Holowczak]

An interesting thing about the pairings has happened on the 8-point scoregroup. Because of ranking by gamepoints after matchpoints, Bulgaria are playing Netherlands - the two highest seeds in the 16-team scoregroup.

[Andrew Martin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7gH2XO6XxA


Rd 6 Agopov v Edouard

Finland v France

[Andrew Bak]

I think you already stated this point Alex, but I find it strange that they see it fit to have deducted SB as a tiebreaker for the overall standings but use game points as a tiebreaker for ranking teams for the purposes of the Swiss draw.

I could understand how something like this might have just been forgotten about when drafting the rules for the first time they used this tiebreak, but this is the 2nd Olympiad where this system has been used. In addition it must probably have been used at other FIDE team tournaments. Therefore this anomaly must exist for a reason.

I can think of a logical reason why this difference exists. Perhaps the deducted SB is quite random in early rounds, so they feel the game points are a better indicator of strength rather than dSB. Taking the this year's Round 1 as an example, Russia beat Dom Republic 3.5-0.5. Russia's pairing for Round 3 might well be very different depending on whether Dom Rep beat Suriname 3-1, or only drew with them 2-2, as actually happened.

dSB will eventually sort itself out, so it is good tiebreaker to use for the final standings.

[Alex Holowczak]

dSB will eventually sort itself out, so it is good tiebreaker to use for the final standings.

I don't have an issue with the use of dSB, as you're calling it, as a tie-breaker.

If I'm running an individual event, I might use SB as a tie-break. The UKCC uses SOPS as a tie-break. No problem with that at all.

However, when pairing an individual event, you don't reseed the scoregroup you're pairing within by something that ends up becoming a tie-break. You just go straight to PIN. This implies that after individual score, the best way to seed players is by their PIN, as opposed to a tie-break.

Compare this with what we have in the Olympiad. It's deemed that gamepoints is better than PIN for determining this kind of thing. I would argue against that argument. I think it adds an element of randomness to the pairings, and penalises the stronger teams - particularly the stronger team who has to play another strong team purely because the other strong team has won lots of matches 2.5-1.5, whereas they've won theirs 3.5-0.5.

I reckon it'd be fairer to get rid of the gamepoints criterion for ranking within a scoregroup for the purposes of pairing. I see that as a distinct issue from the choice of tie-breaks, and I have no problem with them.

[Jonathan Rogers]

So, copying and pasting from Lawrence elesewhere, today it's

Round 7:

Bo. 26 Georgia Rtg - 11 England Rtg 0 : 0
9.1 GM Mchedlishvili, Mikheil 2659 - GM Adams, Michael 2722
9.2 GM Gagunashvili, Merab 2578 - GM Jones, Gawain 2653
9.3 GM Pantsulaia, Levan 2575 - GM Short, Nigel 2698
9.4 GM Shanava, Konstantine 2569 - GM Howell, David 2635

Bo. 32 Ecuador Rtg - 44 England Rtg 0 : 0
26.1 IM Fierro, Martha 2384 - WGM Corke, Anya 2254
26.2 WIM Heredia, Carla 2242 - WFM Yurenok, Maria 2058
26.3 WIM Moncayo, Evelyn 2163 - WFM Hegarty, Sarah 2120
26.4 WFM Romero, Abigail 2109 - WFM Bhatia, Kanwal 2103

England have Black on odds, which as I have already said, is important. Georgia don't have anyone as strong as Adams or Short but we may find they have two players who can draw with them quite confidently with White. Drawing with Short will be a particularly obvious priority - in terms of wins scored, he is carrying the team as much as Van Persie is carrying man united at the moment. Disregarding the first round, only one other player in our team has managed as much as one win.

So, all eyes on Gawain? This is a good opportunity for him to get "into" the event - he hasn't really had the initiative in any game yet, but I feel sure that he won an attractive game against Georgia as White in his favourite anti-sicilian lines some three or five years ago. These Grand Prix lines are noted for being quite misunderstood by many players from Eastern Europe (see too Short v Gelfand, McShane v Cheparinov, Plaskett at Hastings in the 1990s), who have not grown up with personal experience of them, and even if they can see Gawain's games on the database they probably won't have a copy of his book to work from. The question (which I have not researched) is whether his opponent has experience with 1..e5 instead - but if not, then hopefully 1 e4 on board two today (unlike v India).

Are Ecuador the strongest women's team from South America? Just asking. Perhaps someone should tell the press about this match, especially if any of our players do storm their opponents' embassies ...

[JustinHorton]

For some reason Mamedov is represented not by his photograph but by a question mark.

[John Moore]

So is Pantsulaia (great name!) who is playing Nigel Short.

[John Moore]

Not much going on in the England match - although I suspect Rogers J will like Short's position (number of games I've seen where Mr Rogers puts his King on f2 or f7!). Equally, I suspect he will dislike David Howell's position which looks pretty prospectless after 20 moves as white. Doesn't mean he's worse or, at least, not much bu Black does have a nice position.

[JustinHorton]

Here's a question - which is the most closely matched team? I notice that Greece today have only 44 Elo points between their strongest and weakest player.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Is it me, or are England doing worse than yesterday?

[John Moore]

I think we are Ok, Chris. I rather like Short's position - just compare the pieces and ignore Houdini. I can't see Mickey losing and whilst David is worse, it's by no means terminal.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Not much going on in the England match - although I suspect Rogers J will like Short's position (number of games I've seen where Mr Rogers puts his King on f2 or f7!). Equally, I suspect he will dislike David Howell's position which looks pretty prospectless after 20 moves as white. Doesn't mean he's worse or, at least, not much bu Black does have a nice position.

pretty good guess! Certainly right about howell's position, which never looked good and I think he is clearly worse now. I wasn't sure about the correctness of Short's opening to be honest - though I have indeed played similar positions myself!

The question is whether Gawain's advantage can be further increased. It's a close match at the moment but that should be no surprise; we expected them to under-rated and they did beat Holland earlier.

[Greg Breed]

I think we are Ok, Chris. I rather like Short's position - just compare the pieces and ignore Houdini. I can't see Mickey losing and whilst David is worse, it's by no means terminal.

David looks to be quite a bit worse after 28.Nb6 . I think Black should be better with R + N + B and a pawn v 2R. The only slight issue might be that Black's a pawn finishes on a dark square and he has a light squared Bishop. I still think players at this level can generally co-ordinate their pieces much better and therefore make better use of this scenario.