My round 7 wrap-up podcast video and audio only. They appear first at Chessclub.com.
It's all slugfests all the time in the final four rounds. Unless you get New Zealand, of course. For more on the pairings and various other rule discussions taking place in Dresden, check out the blog of Shaun Press of Australia, who is there playing for Papua New Guinea. [h/t Malcolm T] Along with writing about 4-0 losses to Barbados, he has attended several of the rules meetings. Here's the specific post. The making of sausages certainly couldn't be any less attractive to watch, so thank Shaun for doing it for us. Geurt Gijssen is keen to apply the "forfeit at 0" rule to all events. One hour is crazy for a pro sport, I agree, but a few courtesy minutes aren't so bad, are they? At another meeting, of the technical commission, Press hear reports "Chairman of the FIDE Swiss Pairings Commitee Krause said the pairings for Round 3 were a 'catastrophe'." Yathink?
More players, arbiters, coaches blogging out there? Hikaru Nakamura posted a summary in his blog on the first off day. Some game and match notes and an on-scene report on the Bermuda party. Has he or is he going to take Canadian citizenship and/or Canadian chess federation representation? Kinda sounds like it.
The Closet Grandmaster is also on the scene in Dresden with some interesting views of the sausage grinder. Susan Polgar's frenetic site has so much stuff tossed up it's hard to find the good onsite material that isn't just taken from other places (the complete pairings?!). Hyperlinks are your friend! The pics are great though. Susan is hosting the nightly Dresden press conferences. Are those summarized anywhere? Reviews have called them a bit on the dry side. It's chess, people, what do you want? Kasparov has retired. Invite Terrell Owens.
Mark is doing frequent updates on the main page now, as if we have time to see all of this stuff! Superlative job on the games from him and TWIC, as usual. ChessBase has lots of non-color-corrected photos up just about every day. Great to have lots of pics, but yeesh, most of them look like Grandma's vacation snaps circa 1979. Next time just buy a Kodak 110 on Ebay and a scanner, guys. ChessBase, meet white balance; white balance, ChessBase. ChessVibes is on the scene as well, with press conference video and much more. They also have the news up about the Dec. 13 Doha Grand Prix being moved to Elista. Not a big surprise. That bid has been dubious for a long while. More on that in a bit.
Macauley has more of his usual video excellence on the run-up to the dual USA-Russia matchups today in the ICC Blog. The USA women stomped Russia 3-1 btw. Irina (Brooklyn!) Krush beat Kosteniuk in a wild battle. In the Open, Akobian lost to Jakovenko, Onischuk and Nakamura are clinging to life in technical endgames, and Kamsky-Svidler looks headed for a draw after a complex battle. - NO! Kamsky beats him in a spectacular flurry of endgame tactics. Wow.
Defending gold-medal winner Armenia won again, beating France. Israel beat Germany to move into prime medal position. Vietnam draw with China!
Mig,
I think you misinterpreted Hikaru's post about Canada. I believe, he was trying to suggest that he spent his time with Canadians and not that he is a Canadian.
Regards,
SJ
I didn't say he is, only that it sounds like he is increasingly enamored of his new home and colleagues. Referring to Canadians as "we", for example. Certainly nothing wrong with it. I don't have an opinion on it either way, just wondering. Whatever makes him happy. Would be a little ironic, as Charbonneau plays for Canada and lives in Brooklyn while Hikaru is in Vancouver and playing for the US.
Kamsky just beat Svidler in a spectacular (to the naked eye) sequence of endgame tactics. Amazing. Onischuk held against Moro somehow. Nakamura is down exchange and pawn against Grischuk. Bummer. Under match point scoring very little chance of a USA comeback in the final three rounds.
yep ... Kamsky displayed finesse in endgame technique here.
It shows how important it is to learn playing the endgame well and be able to convert small advantage, in this case - a pawn up, to a win.
In the other match, Vietnam was able to hold China to a 2:2 draw -- they (Vietname) surprised me again.
My word, Gijssen is an idiot. Why is this pompous buffoon continually tolerated? I suppose it's like anything in else in chess - presumably he kowtows to the likes of Macro and Ilyumzhinov, and that's all it takes.
Vietnam kinda reminds me of China last Olympiad, a young and underrated up-and-comer. Now China's the veteran team which the little prodigies grab elo points off...
Mig, don't forget http://www.chessvibes.com with video pressconferences & loads of pics!
Why does Chessbase even bother putting phots of the ugly women up? I for one find it offensive. I'll be cancelling my subscription...
Over 14 games, a 14-year old Singapore boy performed at 2722, gaining 125 rating points.
http://ratings.fide.com/tourney.phtml?field1=5801583
Strange all the opponents were from Myanmar.
@Theorist
Here's my list:
HCL's 'Hot or Not' ranking:
Judit Polgar - 8.5 - Formerly cute girl (ages 13-18), who matured to prettiness (19-30), now shows signs of maternal weight gain, incipient double-chin, and circles under the eyes, but nevertheless much residual prettiness.
Antoaneta Stefanova - 9 - Solidly pretty-plus. Apparently a genuinely pleasant personality judging by appearances.
Viktorija Cmilyte - 7 - Formerly a solid '9'. Looks too goody-two-shoes, too eager to please.
Nadezhda Kosintseva - 9.4 - Simply the cutest girl in High Chess at this time.
Tatiana Kosintseva - 8.9 - The stronger of the chess-playing sisters lacks elder Nadezhda's femininity.
Almira Skripchenko - 7 - As with Cmilyte and Judit Polgar, another withering rose. Formerly cute.
Tania Sachdev - 8 - Photogenic. Indian males must find her hot.
Most Overrated: Anna Sharevich - 5 - A bleached blonde with dark roots and a masculine face, hyped by Chessbase. Brow ridge and jaw.
Most Overrated First Runner-up: Arianne Caoili - 5. Too much makeup reminescent of a street walker. Flush face indicates Lev's happy.
Most Overrated Second Runner-up: Sasha Kosteniuk - 7 - One of those girls putatively rated hot by concensus, but merely somewhat above average.
Most Overrated Non-Chessplayer: Actor/Singer Vaile. A Nottie.
Looks-Like-My-Mom Award: Pia Cramling.
HCL: "...Indian males must find her [Tania] hot."
That's an odd comment.
I'm not Indian so I can't evaluate Tania properly. But she's clearly in the top percentile or two of Indian females, IMO.
HCL,
Sophie Milliet from france can be in any hot list. How could you miss her?
The chessbase people are so excited about posting photos of as many females as possible, they don't even get their names right. In the gallery for the 2nd round there are at least 5 females who got complete wrong name tags. Completely wrong, not typos, but totally wrong names from players from different countries.
Cheers for the link!
Of course, instead of those ridiculous nearly all flash-assisted photos from Chessbase, you could always take a look at http://flickr.com/photos/closetgrandmaster/
Thanks again.
- TCG
HCL: Irony detector took a bit of a beating?
@Artin
Sophie Millet may well look gorgeous in person, but she's not photogenic, IMO. This problem of cameras not ever capturing the beauty of certain people, I havent figured out. Some people simply photograph ordinary but are highly attractive, and vice versa.
@Theorist
Sarcasm, irony, movie storylines, and other verbal IQ-intensive artifacts simply go over my head, unprocessed. I didn't quite understand your earlier comment except as an 'in' to rate the new Chessbase set of photos.
"Apparently a genuinely pleasant personality judging by appearances."
There used to be a column in Private Eye (UK satirical magazine best known to chess players for occasional Ray Keene revelations) called Coleman Balls and another one called Pseuds Corner. This comment definitely belongs to one or the other. Long time since anything in the Daily Dirt gave me a chucke. Thanks mate I realise you wont have a clue why this is funny - but no offense meant.
Oh HCL. No, I sort of meant it as the opposite, as a form of fake outrage. (Personally, I think Chessbase's foregrounding of "women in chess" a bit pathetic; the irony in my post was suggesting that they don't go far enough.
The Chess Drum is on the scene too!
The atmosphere is good here. One of the press conferences was Anatoly Karpov and Alexander Khalifman. They discussed the issue of Russia's fall from grace and what they need to do to regain dominance. Karpov said it has nothing to do with talent, but leadership. There is no one who is providing the charge the way Kasparov did. Karpov also talked about the times when he played on the Olympiad teams with both Korchnoi and Kasparov. Khalifman said that perhaps it's good not to have a dominant team for the sake of chess. Well... we haven't had a dominant Olympiad team for nearly a decade.
Interesting environment here. They are very strict on the forfeit rule. IM Amon Simutowe was sitting down waiting on Roger Matoewi of Suriname to show. Matoewi was apparently in the room, but not at the board. When the clocks started, the arbiter placed both kings in the center of the board and declared Simutowe the winner. Simutowe still wanted to play. Matoewi walks up and the arbiter held fast to the rule. It's a horrible rule that most certainly will be the subject of debate on tomorrow when the General Assembly starts. Norway and Mexico are bidding for the 2014 Olympiad.
The setup is good and it was reported by Susan Polgar that there were 10,000 paying visitors at the Dresden Congress Center (since the beginning)! There are a number of stats mentioned in another post making this a very successful Olympiad. Even more, both competitions have turned out to be exciting. Even though 99% of the bloggers here picked Russia for the gold (I said bronze), unfortunately they are out of the medal hunt again. My silver-medal pick Azerbaijan has collapsed... not sure what is going on in Baku, but they always falter toward the end. China is my only chance at guessing any of the three medals. The Chinese youngsters were seen in the press room this evening... confident, happy and focused.
I have been taking some pictures... many of players and federations that people would not know existed since most media only focuses on the top teams. There are some very diminutive players here. Some as young as eight years old! I've got some of the main boards as well, but my strategy is, there are so many good pictures of the top boards that there is nothing special.
http://www.thechessdrum.net/blog/2008/11/21/2008-chess-olympiad-round-8/