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two stories from 2nd round
At the Olympiad yesterday, I was Match Arbiter for Board 20, Belgium vs. Montenegro.
I was not familiar with the Belgium team members, who seemed to be under financial restrictions, such as having 1 shared captain between their 2 teams. They matched up drawingly on the top 2 boards, but Montenegro was stronger on the bottom 2 boards. Montenegro should have won both of those, but pervasive time pressure led to a draw on the 3rd board, with a final score of Belgium 1.5 - 2.5 Montenegro. However, the personal highlight for me was seeing the Montenegro team again, largely unchanged from their team at the European Team Championships last year, where I watched over a few of their matches. Their Captain Dragan Popadic is one of the classiest yet most caring and passionate people in chess that I have ever met, and I also chatted with GM Nikola Djukic (1st) and GM Dragan Kosic (4th). All great guys, and interestingly, to me anyway, they had all fully read the CFC article I had compiled after the Euro last year! Somehow, I even remembered certain aspects of Nikola's game then against GM Ivan Ivanisevic, and we referred to it! If only I could recall my own games that well, maybe I would improve! ;)
Another story from yesterday had me laughing so hard that I was snorting! I did not see this in person, but here is how it was described to me. There was a spectator going around getting pictures taken of himself with famous players. It seems he was having a superb time doing this, getting more and more excited as bigger and bigger names tended to finish their games later in the afternoon and early evening. People around him were finding this entertaining, and were helping out by taking the pictures for him. Well, when he recognized GM Grischuk, he was just beside himself! The GM graciously accepted the photo op, but suddenly, there was no one quite in the vicinity to actually take the shot! The spectator got even more excited than usual, after all, this was Grischuk! So he grabs a man walking by, and implores him to take the photo, explaining that this is his big chance to get his photo taken with the world-famous Grischuk. The man graciously accepts, takes the photo, and then suggests before leaving : "You can call this one : Photo of me with Grischuk, taken by Kramnik" :)
I was not familiar with the Belgium team members, who seemed to be under financial restrictions, such as having 1 shared captain between their 2 teams. They matched up drawingly on the top 2 boards, but Montenegro was stronger on the bottom 2 boards. Montenegro should have won both of those, but pervasive time pressure led to a draw on the 3rd board, with a final score of Belgium 1.5 - 2.5 Montenegro. However, the personal highlight for me was seeing the Montenegro team again, largely unchanged from their team at the European Team Championships last year, where I watched over a few of their matches. Their Captain Dragan Popadic is one of the classiest yet most caring and passionate people in chess that I have ever met, and I also chatted with GM Nikola Djukic (1st) and GM Dragan Kosic (4th). All great guys, and interestingly, to me anyway, they had all fully read the CFC article I had compiled after the Euro last year! Somehow, I even remembered certain aspects of Nikola's game then against GM Ivan Ivanisevic, and we referred to it! If only I could recall my own games that well, maybe I would improve! ;)
Another story from yesterday had me laughing so hard that I was snorting! I did not see this in person, but here is how it was described to me. There was a spectator going around getting pictures taken of himself with famous players. It seems he was having a superb time doing this, getting more and more excited as bigger and bigger names tended to finish their games later in the afternoon and early evening. People around him were finding this entertaining, and were helping out by taking the pictures for him. Well, when he recognized GM Grischuk, he was just beside himself! The GM graciously accepted the photo op, but suddenly, there was no one quite in the vicinity to actually take the shot! The spectator got even more excited than usual, after all, this was Grischuk! So he grabs a man walking by, and implores him to take the photo, explaining that this is his big chance to get his photo taken with the world-famous Grischuk. The man graciously accepts, takes the photo, and then suggests before leaving : "You can call this one : Photo of me with Grischuk, taken by Kramnik" :)
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