A pleasant day with work not related to chess, believe it or not. But back to this wonderful Olympiad. The official site even seems to be working well now, yay. Round 6 games will be here. Wiener-Zeitung has team pairings up here, board pairings will be here. Quite a few tough match-ups today, although there are plenty of lightweight teams still hanging around at the top that are paired with each other, so the real cull won't come for another few days.
Speaking of, we're still waiting for the heavyweights to really squash somebody. Is today the day Russia or Ukraine puts up 3.5 to break away from the pack? The Netherlands have lost only one game so far. Kasimdzhanov has been a rock for Uzbekistan but the 30th seed is living a dream. Stay tuned...
Anand has started with one win and two draws, if I am not wrong. Does this mean his rating is CERTAIN to go down below 2800 after this olympiad.
I know Kaspy played several olympiads even when he was above 2800 and seemed none the worse for it, but one of the main reasons Anand gave for not playing in the Olympiad was the risk of losing significantly rating points due to the posibility of meeting 2500+ GMs and drawing a couple of games.
Perhaps, Kaspy and other top players played on top board only when 2700+ opponents were matched against them and skip other matches?
So is it the case that when a 2800 player plays in such an Olympiad, is he guaranteed to lose points no matter how well he does (barring perhaps winning all games) once he meets 2330-2500 players enroute?
Even worse, if you closely examine one of the photos from the Chess Olympiad, it appears as though Vishy Anand os developing a bald spot on the back of his head. Given the fact that Anad has also gained a bit of weight, you'd almost think that he's the Corsican Twin of Al Gore.
http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3136
Even stranger is the maroon tint that highlights Bu's hair. Do you think that is the result of some defective shampoo, or did he visit an Italian salon for a haircut, and get goaded into having his hair dyed?
Anand has heretofore had a playing style that is well suited to getting the full point in games with lower ranked players--especially the 2500 crowd. I suspect that Anand's previous reluctance to represent the Indian Chess Federation had more to do with questions of remuneration, than with fears about losing rating points. Additionally, it is only in the past several years that Sasikirin and Harikrishna have had their ratings approach the 2700 level. Previously, India stood no real chance of earning a team medal. Obviously, given their high starting rank, and top shelf strength on the first 3 boards, that all has changed.
By the way, Uzbekistan has had the dram come true before, when they won the Silver medal in one of the 1990s Olympiads, on a team led by Greg Serper.
Anand's score will not need to be that massive for him to break even. However, he'll need to beat some strong opponents for him to make back ground.
It's a bit of a shame that Kasparov won't make an exception to his status as a retired chess player, and participate in the Chess Olympiads. He can even claim that he is playing as a passionate amateur. Given the Swiss System nature of the event, it is difficult to be sure of whom you'll be paired against. That neutralizes the advantages of opening preparation, which entail better results for the "Amateur" player. However, I doubt that Kasparov is too eager to valid this FIDE showcase event, as long as Kirsan is still in power.
Can somebody comment on the games ?
I am not able to view the boards at the olympiad site, it says "if you can't visualize the board, please down load java some software" and i click on the java icon, but there is a 126M download file which with my slow connection will take years to download.
any suggestions how i can view the games? thanx
nice positional play was White by Naidisch against Anand so far, as far as I can tell: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Qd6 6. Na3 b5 7. c3 c5 8. Nc2 Bb7 9. Re1 Ne7 10. a4 c4 11. axb5 axb5 12. Rxa8+ Bxa8 13. Na3 c6 14. b3 cxb3 15. Qxb3 Ng6 16. c4 b4 17. Qa4 Qb8 18. Nc2 Be7 19. d4 O-O 20. c5 exd4 21. Nxb4 Qb5 22. Qxb5 cxb5 23. Nd3 Bf6
3 of the 4 Netherlands/Russia games are interesting also. The one that isn't? ..the one with Kramnik. in my opinion, anyway
nice positional play was White by Naidisch against Anand so far, as far as I can tell: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Qd6 6. Na3 b5 7. c3 c5 8. Nc2 Bb7 9. Re1 Ne7 10. a4 c4 11. axb5 axb5 12. Rxa8+ Bxa8 13. Na3 c6 14. b3 cxb3 15. Qxb3 Ng6 16. c4 b4 17. Qa4 Qb8 18. Nc2 Be7 19. d4 O-O 20. c5 exd4 21. Nxb4 Qb5 22. Qxb5 cxb5 23. Nd3 Bf6
3 of the 4 Netherlands/Russia games are interesting also. The one that isn't? ..the one with Kramnik. in my opinion, anyway
"It's a bit of a shame that Kasparov won't make an exception to his status as a retired chess player, and participate in the Chess Olympiads. He can even claim that he is playing as a passionate amateur. Given the Swiss System nature of the event, it is difficult to be sure of whom you'll be paired against. That neutralizes the advantages of opening preparation....."
Kasparov said he was retiring because he had nothing left to prove as a chess player. What would be the point of him participating in an Olympiad? He's already shown that he can mop the floor with sub-2700 opposition, and if he still wanted to play against elite GMs, he wouldn't have retired in the first place.
Besides, what board would he play? Somehow, I don't see him taking Board 2 behind Kramnik, and I don't see Kramnik taking Board 2 behind Kasparov.
Aronian-Kasimjanov: black has the annoyingly elusive "almost-equality" - many pieces exchanged, but white has some pressure.
van Wely-Grischuk: white wrecked his pawn structure for the g-file. I don't think it will pay off, black seems to have nice counterplay.
Ukraine-Iran: except for Ivanchuk, clear advantages to Ukraine on all boards. But hey, Ivanchuk is Ivanchuk, so a 4-0 is possible.
I agree with DOug about how hard or easy it is to break even rating-wise for Anand. It's certainly doable for a player of his calibre. If the rating-average for the opposition is 200 points lower (2600 for Anand), then the expected score is 0.75. In other words, Anand would have to win half the games, and draw the rest.
If the rating-average is 300 points lower (2500), then the expected score is 0.85. That is 7 wins and 3 draws out of 10 games, or approximately 5 wins and 2 draws out of 7 games.
And I might add that at the moment, he has beat a 2300, and drawn two 2650s. His expected score for the four games he's played (including the one today) so far is 0.80. If he beats Naiditsch, he'll have a score of 0.75, just a little shy of what he would need to not lose rating points. :-)
Ashok, I did try downloading the 100MB+ JAVA file. It did not work. What a waste of time.
If you have Mozilla Firefox as your browser, it will update itself with the necessary JAVA files (less than 1 MB). This all you need to view the games.
Good luck.
Ashok, I did try downloading the 100 MB+ JAVA file. It did not work. What a waste of time.
If you have Mozilla Firefox as your browser, it will update itself with the necessary JAVA files (<1 MB). This is all you need to view the games.
Good luck.
There were draws on the top two boards of Russia-Netherlands and now it seem like Russia is in trouble.
Thanks Gerald, I downloaded the firefox and yes it automatically downloaded the needed hava plugins and the boards did show up, well all except Anand's in the India/Germany match.
Looks like Lutz-Harikrishna will be drawn and if so it is another match India is losing. With a 2800, and two 2700s on top three boards, it seems India is playing well below par.
Now I am off to look at the other matches. thx again.
The Netherlands won it seems? That's impressive, and correspondingly disappointing by Russia. Are they in danger of a second Olympiad without coming first?
India enroute to winning 2.5 - 1.5 I think.
Russia lose heavily.
Sorry Russia tie 2-2.
Peace...
Jai, the first report was correct. Russia did, indeed, fall to the Netherlands, 2.5-1.5. Kamsky goes astray in the endgame and loses to Bu (who is now 2/3 against Kamsky, Kramnik, and Anand in this event), but U.S. wins the match, 2.5-1.5.
Hotep,
Maliq
Netherland beat Russia 2.5 - 1.5
India beat Germany 3-1 :-)
US win 2.5 -1.5 over China.
India beat Germany 3-1. Impressive stuff from Hari and Ganguly.
Congrats to Bu who beat Kamsky and drew against Anand and Kramnik in this tournament so far. He continues his solid performance in World Team Championship at Beer Sheva 2005 (He got individual silver medal on board one).
yea I had mistakenly thought Ganguly lost, while perusing just the scoreboard. Harikrishna's win is also impressive.
Incidentlly, wasnt this Bu at some point the 'youngest GM' and there was some controversy about his GM title when he got it? How old is he now? about 16?
While Azerbaijan continues getting slapped around, falling to Cuba 3.5-.5.
Bu is number 3 on the list of youngest GMs Chessbase made a while back. http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2858
"In 1999 the Chinese player Bu Xiangzhi completed his final GM norm at 13 years and four months, but the circumstances were unclear and FIDE never fully recognised this record."
But since he's born in 1985, according to his FIDE-listing ( http://www.fide.com/ratings/card.phtml?event=8601445 ), he's a bit older than 16 by now. ;-)
Haha, Ermenkov lost, so getting a first board medal will be difficult!
"FIDE never fully recognised this record"? Is there any evidence behind this statement?
I think the "controversy" surrounding Bu's record mainly has to do with the fact that people in the Western world didn't really believe he was that strong at the time. They pointed to the fact that the events he got his GM norms from weren't "high-level" tournaments; but the same can be said about several other "youngest GM" record-breakers. Now that Bu has proven (again) that he has real talent, I feel that he deserves some more credit and hopefully people no longer think of his GM record as a fluke.
Bu's about 2640 now, but I feel that he's underrated and if he's given more opportunity to play in elite GM tournaments in Europe (like Radjabov et al. did), his rating would soon rise.
To my mind tomorrow is a big day for the US team. Sweden obviously is playing very well, so they're no pushover, but Kamsky & co need to jack up their score. They haven't played any of the top teams and need to start getting those matches out of the way. Ideally you don't wind up in the last round needing a big score against the Ukraine to have a medal shot.
About Bu, the Chinese PR machie announced him as youngest ever GM when he got his final norm, although he did not have the required 2500 Elo.
Also, his final norm came by a curious game against his coach.
Zippo--
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