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Canada faced another largely unknown squad in the Iraqis. Ratings for such teams are really not very reliable. Sometimes you face opponents who are seriously under-rated. Their countries have chess talent, but not much in the way of FIDE opportunities. Nevertheless, a match win seemed the most probable result. Instead, they lost, albeit by the minimum margin.
Charbonneau-Hussein was a disaster. Pascal deviated on move 11, and instead of the normal 11.0-0-0, he sacrificed his B with 11.Bxh7+. Unfortunately, Black could take the B and defend with 13...Qa5+! and 14...Qf5, covering h7. It's not my place to second-guess the players but in this case I would have played on for a while with White (e.g. 13.Bd2 Qe5+ 14.Kd1 Qf5 15.Bb4), just to keep team-mate morale up. You don't want your team-mates all depressed, and maybe you can convince them by continuing that your position isn't "so bad".
Hussein-Zugic followed a familiar early script. White played a fairly innocuous anti-Sicilian. Black got some free queenside space (I rather liked 9...b5 to get them doggies rolling and get in ...b4 ASAP), while White gets the potential for launching some sort of kingside assault. I had positions like this a few times as Black vs IM Michael Schleifer, and in general I got the feeling that Black is at least equal as long as he is very careful about defending his K. Rybka doesn't mind 14...c4, but I do. I think Black should keep the Qside fluid (to get in ...b4 and begin the Qside invasion/exchange of attackers) or in the alternative to dump the B/a6 with 13...Bxf1 before sealing things up. 15.h4!? was an interesting way to try and spice things up. It certainly gives White more attacking chances than what White tried against the somewhat similar formation adopted by Black in the round three game Rowe-Roussel. Grabbing the pawn with 16...Bxh4 looked incredibly risky and soon enough White's pieces rained destruction upon the Black K.
Roussel-Muhsen was another Dutch Stonewall where White didn't play d4, and just like Noritsyn-Wilson from round three, White got a good position - in this case very good! - in a few moves. I think 9.e4 is the key move. Black has just played too many pawn moves to be allowing the position to be blown up like this. Good to remember if you are paired against someone who insists on adopting Stonewall setups almost regardless of what you do. Black sacrificed a pawn for some play(?), but he just got hammered after 19.Nb5!, which was very strong.
Ahmed-Noritsyn was by far the closest game. Black's position was quite solid, and presumably he was angling for some sort of good N vs not-so-good B ending. I think Nikolay must have overlooked the nice tactical shot 30.Rxe7! and was both lucky it didn't just win on the spot. He showed good nerves not to collapse in surprise. Instead, he sacrificed another P, then traded down into a Q and N vs Q and B position where his N was just much, much better than White's B. Sure enough he bagged back one of the Ps almost immediately. I think at that point it should be drawn. However, due to match considerations, Nikolay couldn't just make a perpetual. He had to try something. Since his losing chances were minimal, he could manoeuvre to his heart's content. And, like a good team member, he did. Maybe he went a bit far in allowing 83.h4! when White rejected the strong-looking 85.Qxh6+ Ke8 86.Qe3 (Rybka), which looks better for White to me. Instead, Nikolay's perseverance was rewarded with 85.Bxg6?! and soon Black can try to get the same position he got in the game but with the White c-pawn missing: e.g. 87...Qxc4+ 88.Ke1 Qc1+ 89.Kf2 Qg5. Hard to find so short of time, though. The resulting K and P ending is drawn. I assume that the last move was some typo in the transcript, so let's ignore that.
I wonder about the health of the players, and hope Ron or Hal can fill us in with details. Olympiads are treacherous. You have time zone acclimatisation problems, coupled with weird, or bad, or weird AND bad food. I still recall IM Bryon Nickoloff's classic comment about the spread at Thessalonika '88: "Eww! Everything looks like macaroni and cheese dip!" That man had a way with words. Actually, in my opinion, the food there was very good. But at Moscow '94 it was horrible (except breakfast) and Novi Sad '90 wasn't too good, either. I still recall how to say (if not spell) "Vegetarian bez reba". I couldn't eat the meat and the fish (reba) wasn't much better, so many of the Canadian team passed on that, too. Finally, to add to the problems, you get the opportunity to catch something from the other players. Even the common cold is exotic when you aren't used to the version floating around Country X or Y or Z ... Any of the above may explain the sub-par performance by the team thus far. Or just maybe other countries are getting better faster than we are getting better. Hard to say.
Charbonneau-Hussein was a disaster. Pascal deviated on move 11, and instead of the normal 11.0-0-0, he sacrificed his B with 11.Bxh7+. Unfortunately, Black could take the B and defend with 13...Qa5+! and 14...Qf5, covering h7. It's not my place to second-guess the players but in this case I would have played on for a while with White (e.g. 13.Bd2 Qe5+ 14.Kd1 Qf5 15.Bb4), just to keep team-mate morale up. You don't want your team-mates all depressed, and maybe you can convince them by continuing that your position isn't "so bad".
Hussein-Zugic followed a familiar early script. White played a fairly innocuous anti-Sicilian. Black got some free queenside space (I rather liked 9...b5 to get them doggies rolling and get in ...b4 ASAP), while White gets the potential for launching some sort of kingside assault. I had positions like this a few times as Black vs IM Michael Schleifer, and in general I got the feeling that Black is at least equal as long as he is very careful about defending his K. Rybka doesn't mind 14...c4, but I do. I think Black should keep the Qside fluid (to get in ...b4 and begin the Qside invasion/exchange of attackers) or in the alternative to dump the B/a6 with 13...Bxf1 before sealing things up. 15.h4!? was an interesting way to try and spice things up. It certainly gives White more attacking chances than what White tried against the somewhat similar formation adopted by Black in the round three game Rowe-Roussel. Grabbing the pawn with 16...Bxh4 looked incredibly risky and soon enough White's pieces rained destruction upon the Black K.
Roussel-Muhsen was another Dutch Stonewall where White didn't play d4, and just like Noritsyn-Wilson from round three, White got a good position - in this case very good! - in a few moves. I think 9.e4 is the key move. Black has just played too many pawn moves to be allowing the position to be blown up like this. Good to remember if you are paired against someone who insists on adopting Stonewall setups almost regardless of what you do. Black sacrificed a pawn for some play(?), but he just got hammered after 19.Nb5!, which was very strong.
Ahmed-Noritsyn was by far the closest game. Black's position was quite solid, and presumably he was angling for some sort of good N vs not-so-good B ending. I think Nikolay must have overlooked the nice tactical shot 30.Rxe7! and was both lucky it didn't just win on the spot. He showed good nerves not to collapse in surprise. Instead, he sacrificed another P, then traded down into a Q and N vs Q and B position where his N was just much, much better than White's B. Sure enough he bagged back one of the Ps almost immediately. I think at that point it should be drawn. However, due to match considerations, Nikolay couldn't just make a perpetual. He had to try something. Since his losing chances were minimal, he could manoeuvre to his heart's content. And, like a good team member, he did. Maybe he went a bit far in allowing 83.h4! when White rejected the strong-looking 85.Qxh6+ Ke8 86.Qe3 (Rybka), which looks better for White to me. Instead, Nikolay's perseverance was rewarded with 85.Bxg6?! and soon Black can try to get the same position he got in the game but with the White c-pawn missing: e.g. 87...Qxc4+ 88.Ke1 Qc1+ 89.Kf2 Qg5. Hard to find so short of time, though. The resulting K and P ending is drawn. I assume that the last move was some typo in the transcript, so let's ignore that.
I wonder about the health of the players, and hope Ron or Hal can fill us in with details. Olympiads are treacherous. You have time zone acclimatisation problems, coupled with weird, or bad, or weird AND bad food. I still recall IM Bryon Nickoloff's classic comment about the spread at Thessalonika '88: "Eww! Everything looks like macaroni and cheese dip!" That man had a way with words. Actually, in my opinion, the food there was very good. But at Moscow '94 it was horrible (except breakfast) and Novi Sad '90 wasn't too good, either. I still recall how to say (if not spell) "Vegetarian bez reba". I couldn't eat the meat and the fish (reba) wasn't much better, so many of the Canadian team passed on that, too. Finally, to add to the problems, you get the opportunity to catch something from the other players. Even the common cold is exotic when you aren't used to the version floating around Country X or Y or Z ... Any of the above may explain the sub-par performance by the team thus far. Or just maybe other countries are getting better faster than we are getting better. Hard to say.
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