Good start for Team Canada

[Neil Frarey]

Both Team Canadas are in the 20's in placing well ahead of their initial placing. Go Team Canada Go!

Interesting Women's 10th round coming up!

So proud of Svitlana ... undefeated!

[David Ottosen]

The most shocking moment of Olympiad 2022 | The illegal move by Sam Shankland - YouTube

I'm not a big Shankland fan but this hurts to watch. The very rarely seen live pre-move failure.

[Hans Jung]

Rd 10 Team Canada tied Brazil. The women lost by a narrow margin to England.

[Salim Belcadi]

I believe he does not need more norms, just needs to get his rating to 2500...

Thanks for the info Dilip.

Victor Plotkin, our FIDE representative, wrote a very interesting post on the CFC forum this morning on norms in the Olympiads. Worth reading.
The rules in the Olympiads to get a norm have changed, and are no different today than that of a typical 10-player Round Robin event.

[David Ottosen]

One thing that's really stood out to me when looking at these Olympiad results is how badly FIDE has made many titles devalued, notably women's titles. Canadian women's team has played 44 games - of those 44, 37 have been against a player with some form of title. Of those 37 players, only 13 have a FIDE rating above 2200. This includes WIMs rated 1687, WFM rated 1585, WCM rated 1329 and 1174. A look through the registered players list shows many other such examples.

Without being "old man yells at cloud", seeing a FIDE title beside someone's name used to really mean something and represent someone who'd really done an exceptional amount of work on their game, and for many women (including the two Canadian women who are titled) it's true. I'd be frankly really unhappy if I worked and studied for years to get a title and then saw FIDE hand the same title I have out to players who are essentially recreational or club level players.

Maybe you can make the argument it's growing women's chess. The problem is that if the only way you can progress chess is to give out essentially fake titles, you quickly run out of tricks to keep them engaged. I'm afraid the real motivation is the same as always with FIDE - title applications generate money so they go full Oprah "you get a title, you get a title, everyone gets a title".

[Frank Dixon]

I think some of the titles for lower-players are from youth events. I think also FIDE is trying to help some of the lesser-developed federations by making some of their better players titled.

I agree with David that it is a problem. Also, FIDE uses titles as a cash cow, since a player (or federation) has to pay FIDE to get it.

[Neil Frarey]

One thing that's really stood out to me when looking at these Olympiad results is how badly FIDE has made many titles devalued, notably women's titles. Canadian women's team has played 44 games - of those 44, 37 have been against a player with some form of title. Of those 37 players, only 13 have a FIDE rating above 2200. This includes WIMs rated 1687, WFM rated 1585, WCM rated 1329 and 1174. A look through the registered players list shows many other such examples.

Without being "old man yells at cloud", seeing a FIDE title beside someone's name used to really mean something and represent someone who'd really done an exceptional amount of work on their game, and for many women (including the two Canadian women who are titled) it's true. I'd be frankly really unhappy if I worked and studied for years to get a title and then saw FIDE hand the same title I have out to players who are essentially recreational or club level players.

Maybe you can make the argument it's growing women's chess. The problem is that if the only way you can progress chess is to give out essentially fake titles, you quickly run out of tricks to keep them engaged. I'm afraid the real motivation is the same as always with FIDE - title applications generate money so they go full Oprah "you get a title, you get a title, everyone gets a title".

CFC is complicit in this devaluation of women.

Spineless leadership that has always gone along to get along.

For example ...

Woman Candidate Master (WCM)

Introduced with CM in 2002, Woman Candidate Master is the lowest-ranking title awarded by FIDE. This title may be achieved by gaining a FIDE rating of 2000 or more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles

Why there hasn't been an uproar by your CFC rank and file I have no idea ... someone needs to take the lead on this damaging issue. Won't be the Chess Federation of Canada, that's for sure.

Absolute shame.

[Frank Dixon]

Note that play in the 11th and final round for Chennai Olympiad 2022 will start five hours earlier than all previous rounds. The round will start at 10 am local time Tuesday, Aug. 9 in Chennai, which is 12:30 am Tuesday Aug. 9 Eastern Daylight Time, or a bit less than six hours from now.
Canadian Men, seeded #44, currently ranking #32, will face Cuba. Top four boards will play; alternate IM Samsonkin will sit out. Canadian Women, seeded #56, currently ranking #36, will face Argentina. Top four (only four!) boards will play.
All information from chess-results.com, which has been a tower of strength through the tournament.

[Vlad Drkulec]

And they are playing with only four players, who each have played every round so far. I believe the CFC needs to explain this situation, on the record, but perhaps this can wait until the tournament is complete.

There was a late withdrawal and we were not able to get a visa for the replacement player, Rachel Chen. We were only able to attend the Olympiad and Congress with some massive intervention by the Indian organizers and FIDE. We did not have enough players with visas to form a full team on either the open or women's team just five or six days before we were scheduled to fly. Getting visas for Canadians was a nightmare throughout the process as we had to have paper visas while everyone else could apply for a electronic visa. The service BLS which we had to use seemed to take peculiar pleasure in denying visas to Canadians.

[Hans Jung]

In the last round Team Canada lost narrowly to Cuba. Raja Panjwani came through with a win. The women lost narrowly to Argentina.

[Hans Jung]

Raja Panjwani ended up with the best percentage on the team and needs just 28 more rating points (I think) to get the grandmaster title. That equates to two more good tournaments or one great tournament. Lets hope that great tournament comes soon.

[Dilip Panjwani]

Actually he needs only 15 points to get the GM title, I think...

[Hans Jung]

Actually he needs only 15 points to get the GM title, I think...

Even much better - one good tournament!

[Frank Dixon]

Here is Raja's amazing win in the final round. I got it from chess24.com.

GM Carlos Albornoz Cabrera (Cuba, 2566) -- IM Raja Panjwani (Canada, 2450)
Chennai Olympiad 2022, rd. 11, played Aug. 9, board 2
Spanish, Berlin Defense, C65
Brief comments by Frank Dixon

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d3 Bc5 5.c3 d5 6.exd5 Qxd5
[The database 365chess.com shows the line as better for White based on known games, but it has been adopted by several super-GMs. To this juncture, we have GM Aronian 9 games, GM Grischuk 7 games, GM Kramnik 5 games. I've also played it myself since high school, and in a couple of training games with Raja some 20 years ago, when I was coaching him. It has some similarities to the much better known Marshall Gambit.]
7.Bc4 Qd6 8.b4 Bb6
[At this juncture, there are 17 games at 365chess.com, showing a strong edge to White.]
9.Nbd2 Bf5!?
[Only one game now, and it is a recent one: Daggupati -- Espinosa, U.S. Junior Championship, St. Louis, July 7, 2022, won by White!]
10.a4 Bxd3! 11.a5 Bxf2+!
[For his piece Black gets two pawns, stops White's King from castling, and prepares castling long! He has excellent compensation.]
12.Kxf2 O-O-O! 13.Bxd3 Qxd3 14.Re1 e4! 15.Ng5 Qxc3! 16.Ra3 Qd4+! 17.Kf1 Rd5!
[Black piles on the pressure with relentless accuracy; there may not be a way for White to save the game now.]
18.Nh3 Rf5+ 19.Ke2 Nd5! 20.Qb3 e3! 21.Nf3 Qg4! 22.Kf1 Nd4! 23.Qc4 Rxf3+! 24.Kg1 Rxh3!, 0-1.
[In my opinion, this is the most impressive game played by a Canadian at Chennai 2022!!!]

[Neil Frarey]

Both Team Canadas are in the 20's in placing well ahead of their initial placing. Go Team Canada Go!

What was their initial placing?