Tweet
Hi Everyone,
I just came back yesterday and wanted to give a summary of the event. The Olympiad was for the most part well organized. The hotel was excellent but the playing hall was too congested and stuffy. There was pressure to be there on time by 3:00 PM as otherwise you would be forefited (This happened to Takcheev fro m France in the last round). The Germans handled the olympiad in a very original way, there was music and entertaiment before the games which is very unusuall and seemed to upset many of the players. There was also a very strange pairing system which noobody understood (accelrated 1st 3 rounds etc.). In the first round we played India, it was a very even match which could have gone either way but India came on top. It was good to see our old coach Psakhis again who was coaching the Indians this time. We then had 2 strong rounds against Bolivia and Jamaica followed by a test with Scotland. Unforutnatelly this match did not end well for us and signalled some of the problems that were to pleague us in the coming rounds. The strength of this team was the strong team cohesion, but the weakness was lack of proffesional preparation which is required for such a high class event. While the team is very talented many of the players are very busy with work and or studies to devote the nesscary time for serious chess. After scotland we had 2 more poor results against Yemen and Iraq. Then we recovered and finished with 4.5/5 drawing only with Germany 2. Everyone had a great time and we got along excellently without any conflicts. I tried to play everyone more or less an equal amount but when playing a strong team I would field the top 4. I think Mark and Pascal are really great talents who could easilly be 2600+ players with the proper support. Igor, Thomas and Nikolay are also very strong players who should be able to achieve the GM title if they keep at it and get the right oppurtunities to play. There is also the hope that Hikaru Nakamura will join our federation and play for Canada in the next Olympiad, I hope that he will have the sponsership nessscary to do this. The women also did very well, I beleive that both Yuan and Dina missed getting WIM norms by a slim margin. There was good relations between all the women and also between the men and the women. For me this was the first time where I participated as Captain rather then player. It was a very enjoyable event that was well organized and all the players behaved very well and preformed credibly. I think that finishing 28th (tied for 18th) is our best finish in a while and I beleive that we can definitely improove in future olympiads. I want to thank the CFC for co-ordinating all the details and thank you to all the players for making this a memorable event.
Ron.
I just came back yesterday and wanted to give a summary of the event. The Olympiad was for the most part well organized. The hotel was excellent but the playing hall was too congested and stuffy. There was pressure to be there on time by 3:00 PM as otherwise you would be forefited (This happened to Takcheev fro m France in the last round). The Germans handled the olympiad in a very original way, there was music and entertaiment before the games which is very unusuall and seemed to upset many of the players. There was also a very strange pairing system which noobody understood (accelrated 1st 3 rounds etc.). In the first round we played India, it was a very even match which could have gone either way but India came on top. It was good to see our old coach Psakhis again who was coaching the Indians this time. We then had 2 strong rounds against Bolivia and Jamaica followed by a test with Scotland. Unforutnatelly this match did not end well for us and signalled some of the problems that were to pleague us in the coming rounds. The strength of this team was the strong team cohesion, but the weakness was lack of proffesional preparation which is required for such a high class event. While the team is very talented many of the players are very busy with work and or studies to devote the nesscary time for serious chess. After scotland we had 2 more poor results against Yemen and Iraq. Then we recovered and finished with 4.5/5 drawing only with Germany 2. Everyone had a great time and we got along excellently without any conflicts. I tried to play everyone more or less an equal amount but when playing a strong team I would field the top 4. I think Mark and Pascal are really great talents who could easilly be 2600+ players with the proper support. Igor, Thomas and Nikolay are also very strong players who should be able to achieve the GM title if they keep at it and get the right oppurtunities to play. There is also the hope that Hikaru Nakamura will join our federation and play for Canada in the next Olympiad, I hope that he will have the sponsership nessscary to do this. The women also did very well, I beleive that both Yuan and Dina missed getting WIM norms by a slim margin. There was good relations between all the women and also between the men and the women. For me this was the first time where I participated as Captain rather then player. It was a very enjoyable event that was well organized and all the players behaved very well and preformed credibly. I think that finishing 28th (tied for 18th) is our best finish in a while and I beleive that we can definitely improove in future olympiads. I want to thank the CFC for co-ordinating all the details and thank you to all the players for making this a memorable event.
Ron.
Comment