The 43rd Chess Olympiad is over and we can now (almost) confidently announce the winners. Chess 24 has all the results and if you click on ‘standings’, it has the following: 1. USA 2. Russia 3. China. All three are level on 18 MP (match points?) but the USA and Russia have 29 BP (board points?) to China’s 28½ so that seems to suggest a tie break between the USA and Russia which could be fun. However, a check on chessresults.com shows four separate tie breaks with TB4 appearing to carry most weight although it’s not clear what it stands for. Crucially, though, it has China first with 149, the USA second with 147 and Russia third with 144. All three teams won 8, drew 2 and lost 1. (Incidentally, congratulations to the England team who won 8 drew 1 and lost 2 to finish in an excellent fifth place – their best finish for 22 years.)
There was still confusion amongst contributors to the official website’s message board even while the closing ceremony was taking place. This was an event in itself with medals handed out like confetti in a programme interspersed with an unusual choice of songs from local singers (‘Chain Reaction’, ‘Cabaret’) adding to the consternation of chess fans messaging (“Who is this woman?” “No, not another song! Where’s my gun? I can’t stand any more!”), alongside some more unrepeatable remarks, the most charitable of which questioned her ELO rating. Medals were handed out for first, second and third individuals in five categories: reserve then boards 4, 3, 2 and finally 1. With some confidence I can announce that Ju Wenjun of China won the prize for best women’s performance on board 1 with 7/9 and Ding Liren for best male on board 1 with 5½/8. However, a further ‘gold medal’ was then awarded to Ju Wenjun – ok, this seems to confirm her place as overall female individual winner – and Jorge Cori from Peru, who scored 7½/8 including seven games as White! He was rested for the last round, perhaps to protect his score. One can only assume that there must be some seeding of opponents faced when judging the individual winners because England’s board 1, Jovanka Houska, had a terrific tournament, losing only one game and finishing with 7½/9. However, two of her opponents were under 1800 whereas Ju Wenjun did not face anyone below 2300.
Ding Liren
After yet more music the final medals for the top three teams were awarded. (There had earlier been medals for the top three teams in about four other categories but remember – there were almost 200 teams taking part.) Eventually, China was confirmed as winner of both the men’s and women’s competitions although, interestingly, the tournaments were named ‘Women’ and ‘Open’. After each of the team winners was announced, an anthem was played and everyone stood up but whether this was the Chinese national anthem or a FIDE anthem – one wag suggested ‘Georgia on my mind’ would be more appropriate – was not clear and the Chinese players certainly did not seem to accord it much reverence. As for Wei Yi, he had a rather modest tournament. After winning his first two games, he did not win another, was not selected for the last two matches and finished on 3½/7. Congratultions to Ding Liren, however, who was unbeaten in the competition, played for the winning team, took the medal for the best performance on board 1 and played one of the best games in the tournament in the crucial defeat of Poland in the penultimate round.
White: Ding Liren (2804) Black: Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2739)
43rd Chess Olympiad (Batumi) Round 10
Broadstairs 3½ Bridge ½
| 1 | Richard Clement (128) | ½-½ | Jeff Green (e135) |
| 2 | Chris Stampe (124) | 1-0 | Tim Spencer (118) |
| 3 | John Couzens (118) | 1-0 | Peter Blundell (117) |
| 4 | Gary Hilleard (118) | 1-0 | James Smith (94) |
Andy Flood writes:
A new look Broadstairs Hargreaves team got of to a flying start against a strong Bridge side in the first Hargreaves game of the season. Chris Stampe on board 2 very early on won his debut Broadstairs game against his former club for Broadstairs to go 1–0 up. In a tight game on the top board, Richard Clement put in a solid performance to earn and agree a draw. Full points were secured when Gary Hilleard forced his opponent to resign in the middle game through the power and lining up of his rooks and queen. The last match to finish was John Couzens, who had taken a break from his holidays to play and exhibit excellent end game technique against Peter Blundell. On securing the smallest of a pawn positional advantage, John forced his opponent to give up a bishop to prevent a passed pawn from queening. He then sacrificed a knight to guarantee two passed pawns at which point his opponent resigned. So a great start and result.
Welcome to Batumi! Where? I hear you ask. Well, as the official logo on the left makes clear, Batumi is in Georgia, the country’s second city after the capital Tbilisi. It is on the Black Sea north of Turkey and is the venue for the 43rd Chess Olympiad which began on Monday and runs until October 5th as an 11-round Swiss tournament with just one rest day. Forget the football world cup and the complaints over 32 teams, this is the big one with 183 countries taking part featuring 185 teams (Georgia is fielding three teams). And that’s just the men’s tournament….Running simultaneously is the women’s competition featuring 151 teams from 149 countries. 749 female players are taking part and 919 men including almost all the top players in the world (although not Magnus Carlsen who is preparing for his forthcoming world championship match).
The England team, seeded 8 and consisting of Michael Adams, Luke McShane, David Howell, Gawain Jones and Nick Pert, made a reasonable start but came a cropper in Round 4 against a strong Azerbaijan team (seeded 4) who outgraded the England team on all four boards. For those of you familiar with Georgia but less so with England, here is a brief summary from the official Olympiad website: ‘England, birthplace of Shakespeare and The Beatles, is a country in the British Isles bordering Scotland and Wales. The capital, London, on the River Thames, is home of Parliament, Big Ben and the 11th-century Tower of London.’ So now you know.
The USA are favourites to win the men’s competition and who can be surprised with Caruana, Nakamura, So and Sam Shankland, the current US Champion in their team. China are seeded 3 and we shall catch up with our honorary overseas Broadstairs member, Wei Yi, in a future post. Russia are the traditional favourites for the Olympiad but they have not made a strong start and lost to Poland (seeded 13) in Round 4. The crucial game was this loss by Vladimir Kramnik to the Polish no.4, Jacek Tomczak. In a fairly wild game, the position suggested a slight advantage to White until 26….Rd5? when the computer’s analysis went from “White is slightly better’ to ‘White is winning’ in one move.
White: Jacek Tomczak (2614) Black: Vladimir Kramnik (2779)
43rd Chess Olympiad (Batumi) Round 4
We welcomed several new players to the club in 2018 and four of them played in our first Millar Cup match of the season at Folkestone. One of the four, Trefor Owens, could not have made a better start with this terrific win. Perhaps we should instigate a Game of the Season because this one would certainly be a front runner: when did you last sacrifice your queen on move 10 – and win? Although it was in a losing cause as Broadstairs were beaten by Folkestone – just our luck to produce a team with an average of 153 and come up against a side averaging 160 – it was very satisfying that two of our new members got off to winning starts against strong opponents and we look forward to more of the same in the future. Well played, Trefor, and thanks for adding your comments on the game.
White: Martin Cutmore (173) Black: Trefor Owens (167)
Millar Cup v Folkestone (a)
Broadstairs 2½ Folkestone 4½
| 1 | David Faldon (175) | ½-½ | Jim Bayford (181) |
| 2 | Trefor Owens (167) | 1-0 | Martin Cutmore (173) |
| 3 | Shany Rezvany (163) | 0-1 | Kevin Smyth (165) |
| 4 | Arnaud Wisman (155) | 1-0 | John Atherton (163) |
| 5 | Bob Page (144) | 0-1 | Tayfun Demirbilek (153) |
| 6 | Paul Carfrae (141) | 0-1 | Matthew Cussens (152) |
| 7 | Richard Clement (128) | 0-1 | Alex Nicol (136) |
David Faldon writes:
Broadstairs were excited to land a whole netful of new members for the new season, and we took three of them to Folkestone for the first of our Millar Cup matches. Fielding the strongest team we’d ever raised in my time as captain, we were still outgraded by Folkestone on every board. Despite this overall (slight) mismatch, each individual game was closely fought with the match result in doubt until near the end of play. The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the board two clash where Trefor sacrificed his queen for two, three or four minor pieces (the situation was different every time I looked). Provided that Trefor hasn’t lost his scoresheet I expect to see his effort featured as Game of the Week on this website in the very near future. Look out for it! Most of the other games saw tricky tactics too, apart from the game on board four where the queens and all four rooks were hoovered off early. Still, endings can be fun too with the right attitude and Arnaud persevered and his patience was rewarded. Regrettably, most of the other games didn’t end so well for Broadstairs, but at least we gave it a real go this year. Many thanks to everyone who played and especially to those who drove such a long way. Congratulations to Folkestone on their victory. As usual, they made us feel very welcome and even provided tea, coffee and biscuits.