2014 Tromsø Chess Olympiad

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  • Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

    This is the story Jack linked to (didn't ask me for payment, probably knows I don't have no money, and I'm cheap anyway)

    A member of the chess team from the Seychelles collapsed and died on the last day of the Chess Olympiad in Tromsø on Thursday. A moment of silence was held during the closing ceremonies that otherwise marked the first victory by a country outside Europe and the US.

    The player from the Seychelles suddenly seemed to suffer a seizure and fell to the floor of the large hall where 650 chess matches have gone on simultaneously for the past 12 days. Two ambulances arrived quickly but they were unable to revive the Seychelles player.

    “We have had the Red Cross inside the playing hall, and they immediately began resuscitation efforts,” Morgan Lillegård of the Chess Olympiad’s organizing committee told reporters “The ambulance team continued the emergency efforts.”

    Most of the matches were over when the player collapsed while others interrupted their play. State broadcaster NRK reported that many people in the hall began to cry and several of the man’s teammates witnessed his collapse. The organizers said they were setting up a crisis team that would be available for anyone feeling a need for support.

    The Chess Olympiad otherwise ended with China winning gold for the men in games against Poland, and Russia winning gold for the women against Bulgaria. Armenia had been favoured but ended up with its own star Levon Aronian describing the country’s performance in Tromsø as “dreadful.” Norway won its last matches on Thursday against Malaysia 4-0 but ended in 29th place, after a disappointing tournament that chess world champion Magnus Carlsen left early after losing two games in a row.

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    • Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

      More details on that death. He was apparently a sextagenarian with a bad heart.

      http://www.thelocal.no/20140815/ches...d-during-match

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      • Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

        Susan Polgar has an "Exclusive 1st interview with the Chinese Olympiad Team after clinching Gold" that's a little more than a 1/2 hour long but about 1/2 of that is the translation from Chinese to English. I'm amused that China went with their so-called young team, leaving 3 of their top 5 players home, when those 3 are China's #2, Wang Hao (2730), 25 years old, #4, Li Chao (2711), also 25, and #5, Bu Xiangzhi (2707), really 'old' at 29 (:

        http://susanpolgar.blogspot.ca/2014/...h-chinese.html

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        • Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

          The dead Seychelles player has been identified as their #2 board, Kurt Meier. His son, Peter, played Seychelles #1 board, and his wife was also evidently playing for the Seychelles women's team albeit I don't see a Meier listed on their team. I'm assuming she played under her maiden name.

          http://www.seychellesnewsagency.com/...hess+community

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          • Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

            'The Globe And Mail' is reporting a 2nd death in Tromso, an unnamed (at this point) player from Uzbekistan (who still had medal chances going into the final round).

            http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle20073544/

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            • Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

              Here's a confirmation of that 'Globe' story. I'm just hoping it wasn't Uzbekistan's top board, GM Rustam Kazimdzhanov, of whom my son, Zehn, is a big fan.

              http://www.thelocal.no/20140815/seco...chess-olympics

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              • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                Originally posted by Felix Dumont View Post
                I saw somewhere that Qiyu already had the WFM by two other ways (rating and NAYCC), but it's not listed on the FIDE website. Maybe she didn't pay the required amount.
                The CFC policy and practice has been to pay for FM and WFM titles for kids. Titles from NAYCC are still in process.

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                • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                  There's still no word as yet on the identify of the dead (from "natural causes") Uzbekistan player but he has to be considerably younger than Kurt Meier. The 5 male members of the Uzbekistan team are (with age in parentheses):

                  Board 1: GM Rustam Kazimdzhanov (34)
                  Board 2: GM Anton Filippov (27)
                  Board 3: GM Marat Dzhumaev (38)
                  Board 4: IM Jahongir Vakhidov (19)
                  Baard 5: FM Ulugbek Tilyaev (21)

                  Rustam is the 2nd oldest there so I'm starting to get worried>

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                  • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                    Originally posted by Jack Maguire View Post
                    There's still no word as yet on the identify of the dead (from "natural causes") Uzbekistan player but he has to be considerably younger than Kurt Meier. The 5 male members of the Uzbekistan team are (with age in parentheses):

                    Board 1: GM Rustam Kazimdzhanov (34)
                    Board 2: GM Anton Filippov (27)
                    Board 3: GM Marat Dzhumaev (38)
                    Board 4: IM Jahongir Vakhidov (19)
                    Baard 5: FM Ulugbek Tilyaev (21)

                    Rustam is the 2nd oldest there so I'm starting to get worried>
                    It was a member of the deaf team who is from Uzbekistan. His name was: Alisher Anarkulov.

                    http://chess-news.ru/en/node/16440

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                    • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                      Brain Feldman is clearly a hack writer but some may find his musings on the 2 deaths in Tromso amusing. I do at least like the photo with blood on the chessboard (:

                      http://www.vocativ.com/culture/sport...orway/#!bDY3zo

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                      • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                        Getting back to the actual chess played in Tromso, Leonard Barden, writing for 'The Guardian', has a good wrap up article. I do like his comment about "hungry young stars on the lower boards". China, of course, had 15-year-old Wei Yei on their board 5. And the over-achieving Australians owe their success to their 13-year-old on board 5, Anton Smirnov. I'd love to see Canada follow suit 2 years hence in Baku for both the men's and women's teams (:

                        http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...romso-olympiad

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                        • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                          We seem to have some explanation (misguided, imho) as to why Anand was the only top 10 player to forego playing in Tromso.

                          http://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-...cle6321797.ece

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                          • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                            Originally posted by Jack Maguire View Post
                            We seem to have some explanation (misguided, imho) as to why Anand was the only top 10 player to forego playing in Tromso.

                            http://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-...cle6321797.ece
                            A case could possibly be made that it was Canada's own Pascal Charbonneau who drove Anand away from the Olympiads. Pascal was Vishy's R12 opponent (and he sat out the final R13) and only added to Anand's dismal showing in Tromso, the last Olympiad ever played by Anand.

                            http://chess-results.com/tnr3410.asp...flag=30&wi=821

                            Said game was also a 'Game of the day' at chessgames.com, amusingly entitled 'Pascal's Triangle' - and I'm almost as much a fan of Blaise Pascal as I am of Thoreau (:

                            http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1417848
                            Last edited by Jack Maguire; Friday, 15th August, 2014, 03:26 PM.

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                            • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                              Here's yet another 13-year-old, Layla Timergazi, who had a big tournament in Tromso. She played board 5 for New Zealand but played more games (10) than any of the top 4 boards, all titled. And her results were good enough that the previously untitled girl has passed 3 of New Zealand's titled team members (:

                              http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/1038...oungest-master

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                              • Re: Re : Re: Tromso Olympiad 2014

                                India is crediting a good part of their success to "strategy" or what I would call the proper application of game theory. Tangentially, I find it interesting that none of the medal winners on Board 1 (Topalov, Adams, Giri) had their respective countries do particularly well; in fact, all 3 countries finished below their seed number. Doing well on lower boards (where China and India dominated) seemed far more conducive to ultimate team success.

                                http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_...sp?n_id=256271

                                I'm going to include a 2nd news item for two reasons. First, I didn't realize there was (or so this article says) "Gold" by "category". Sri Lanka, the 120th seed, finished 74th and evidently won some kind of minor "Gold" (not likely a medal). Interesting enough, Sri Lanka came even closer to applying likely proper game theory by putting their lowest rated player on board 1, who turned in the rather dismal score of 1.5/7. Their other boards overachieved, however, and accounted for Sri Lanka's unexpected performance, garnering the cited 12 points (just 1 point behind Canada).

                                http://www.dailymirror.lk/news/51156...-olympiad.html

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