Round 7 Olympiad

[Duncan Smith]

The men play Macau ( average rating 2020 ) and the women play 14th seed Slovenia ( average rating 2359 ). Bounce back day for the men and a thrilling but difficult challenge for
the women.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

Canada, with top tiebreak among the 5 matchpointers, plays Macau, with the bottom tiebreak. So having a good tiebreak (which involves scoring more game points, regardless of the match result) also gives you "good" (that is, less difficult) pairings in subsequent rounds. And after the last round, of course, it could make a dozen places difference in the standings.

Using the same method (top vs. bottom, down to middle vs. middle), Canada would have played England (women), except that we've already played them. One rung down was Slovenia, whom we are playing. One rung up would have been Georgia! Slovenia is strong, but Georgia would have been a tale to tell the grandkids some day.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

Canada, with top tiebreak among the 5 matchpointers, plays Macau, with the bottom tiebreak. So having a good tiebreak (which involves scoring more game points, regardless of the match result) also gives you "good" (that is, less difficult) pairings in subsequent rounds. And after the last round, of course, it could make a dozen places difference in the standings.

Using the same method (top vs. bottom, down to middle vs. middle), Canada would have played England (women), except that we've already played them. One rung down was Slovenia, whom we are playing. One rung up would have been Georgia! Slovenia is strong, but Georgia would have been a tale to tell the grandkids some day.

Our national team is currently in 86th place. The Women's team in 30th place. I like the chances against Slovenia better than against Georgia.

[Duncan Smith]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

A lot of the WYCC players we used to see have filtered into the Women's Olympiad. Z. Tan from China is leading her board now with a monster performance so far. A. Muzychuk ( and her sister ) were WYCC regulars; she'll play Natalia tommorrow I presume. One potential interesting future match up is Turkey with Ozturk on the team.

[Bob Armstrong]

Rd. 7 - Women's Team - In Progress

Rd. 7 sees Canada's Women's team playing Slovania on Bd. 12.

WFM Yuanling Yuan ( 2157 ) is on second board ( 12.2 ) playing WGM Jana Krivec ( 2345 ).

Since Yuanling is a member of my chess club, Scarborough CC, I ( read Fritz ) will be doing live analysis of her game on the chess website, Chess5 ( www.chess5.com ). When you get to the homepage, click on " Public Games " to get the November list of games. Find the game, and then click on " View " and you will get a board and the score, with analysis ( it takes a few seconds for the game to load ). Hope you find it interesting.

Bob

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

As always, the live games are at:
Women:

http://schachlive.dresden2008.de/liv...mes.f.eng.html

Open Olympiad:
http://schachlive.dresden2008.de/liv...mes.m.eng.html

It's pretty clear that the last move in Khoudgarian - Anna Muzychuk Qa5-d5, leaving the Q en prise, is a glitch. I'm guessing that the Q went to e5, and that White's next move was Resign.

Dina has a reasonable position, though down the road she may miss the dark-square bishop which she traded for a knight. Our games with Black feature sacrifices by one side or the other. Yuanling seems to have scant compensation for the two pawns she has given up. Irina's opponent does have obvious compensation for her gambit pawn in the form of an attack along the g-file.

Canada is up 3-0 against Macau, and Mark Bluvshtein's position looks good.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

The men are doing well - Pascal, Igor, and Nikolay have all won, and Mark's position looks good. The ladies appear to be down 1-0 (Natalia lost on board 1 according to the team listing, but nothing has yet appeared on the individual board image).

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

Irina sacrificed the Exchange to blunt the attack, and now looks good on the dark squares.

Let me now broach a controversial subject. Under the old system of game points, match captains were allowed access to the playing hall at all times, dating back to the days of preliminary group qualifications. In a game-point Swiss there was no good reason to admit captains, but the tradition persisted. Now with match points, there again is a reason. A player is offered a draw, and before replying asks the captain whether she can accept. Based upon the match conditions and a general principles-only view of the game in question, the captain answers. By the way, at Calvia 2004 I was arbiting a match where this did not apply. Madl, playing AFAIR first board for Hungary against AFAIR Ukraine, asked the captain, GM Horvath (one of the GMs Horvath) whether she could accept a draw offer. Horvath came to the game position fresh, and started to look at the position, only to realize in an instant that it was a crazy game with wild material and positional imbalances. You should have seen the expression on his face. To look at this position and give a draw-or-not opinion would have been to offer Madl real chess advice, which is not a legit role of the captain. You could see all this pass over Horvath's face in a fraction of a second. He indicated that, yes, a draw was OK, and it was sealed.

Anyway, back to the question of captains, in a matchpoint event the captain's role is more sensible, as he keeps track of how the games are going, so the players themselves don't have to. He can also offer package deals (though the 30-move rule in this Olympiad eliminates early deals). I'm wondering if the Canadian captain in this match, with the score 1-0 in Slovenia's favour, could offer a package deal of three draws. That would give the match to Slovenia, but it would increase Canada's gamepoint tiebreaks and improve their future pairings. In none of the games does Canada look like it might win, and in a couple Canada looks worse. I think that would be a good move strategically for Canada's final placing, but what would the fans think? And what would Canada's players think? I'm not even thinking about Slovenia's players. Hey, buddy, I'm two pawns up, you can't agree to a draw for me! Well, that wouldn't happen because in Europe there is more respect for the captains. But the player might think it, which is almost as damaging.

I very much doubt that what I have described will happen. But a different match with different countries, different captains ....

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

Yuanling is now down three pawns.

Dina is on the cusp of a sacrificial attack. It's easy to sac on f7 from the sidelines, but if she retreats the knight, White's position looks just bad. Before I could send that off, she didn't sac, but found an interesting chance with Nxc5. It looks at first glance like Black could go up in material, but at the price of solving White's positional problems and giving her a passed d-pawn. As always, not using an engine.

Irina continues to have compensation for the Exchange sac.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

All three games are down to time pressure. As we know, anything can happen in time pressure. I like the way Irina is handling her position. Whether it pays off of course is another matter. Hmm, I would have tried to avoid a rook trade. Anyway. There is a piquant variation in Dina's game where White gives up her last piece, a rook on d3, and playing d6-d7 queens the pawn. That will never happen, but at least it figures in the calculations.

[Vlad Dobrich]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

Dina just found a great shot 37.Ra4 - looks winning a B.
She's playing a nice aggresive game!

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

Irina was outplayed in the latter stages. Lesson: avoid time trouble! Yuanling never got her counterplay off the ground. Dina is a piece up, but hasn't made progress and is down to 9+ minutes. Of course with the 30-second increment, there's still time to make many many more moves. Slovenia 3-0 Canada (and counting). Canada 4-0 Macau.

[Vlad Dobrich]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

I didn't much like Dina's 44 Kf3 .... Better seemed 44 Be2 intending Bf3 regaining the long diagonal and then repositioning the knight to win with the passed pawn.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

Canada 4-0 Macau.

Macau was seeded 130rd. It doesn't get much easier.

Someone once tried to sell me a Macau. The bird was too darn loud and the mess it leaves is more than my dog "beware" does. If it catches your finger in its beak it can break the finger like a twig. All stuff that's good to know. :)

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: Round 7 Olympiad

Hi Gary:

Worse than that I think - on the original ranking list, they're # 133 !

Bob