Baku Olympiad

Tim Harding

cdeb wrote: »

Babs playing a stormer it seems; B, N+3 each against Vachier-Legrange afer move 30. Looks dead level to my eyes, and indeed to the "unreliable" computer. Any more experienced judgments on his position though? Any compensating factors for Legrange? Or is Babs set for a great result against the world number two?

Alex certainly has excellent drawing chances, it would be a dead draw without the knights. The second half of his opponent's name is not "Legrange", it's "Lagrave". He generally answers to "MVL".

cdeb

Oops! He's on the liveboards as Vachier-Lagr. I blame ZZ Top for the rest of my mistake.

Edit - not sure what the story with Jessel's game is; computer showing his flag falling against Maze, but I guess we have to presume that he's in big time trouble at least. Only Heidenfeld in trouble so far though - two pawns down - but a decent showing elsewhere all things considered.

Big advantages on the top two boards for the Women against Pakistan; should be able to take the match win from here.

cdeb

Lagrave now offering Babs the chance to swap his (Babs') knight for MVL's bishop - surely an admission that Lagrave has no more winning potential?

Edit - and Babs declines. Shows what I know!

Tim Harding

cdeb wrote: »

Lagrave now offering Babs the chance to swap his (Babs') knight for MVL's bishop - surely an admission that Lagrave has no more winning potential?

Edit - and Babs declines. Shows what I know!

Jessel has lost; Heidenfeld and Daly are losing according to the online engine (and my quick view of the board). Alex probably wants to keep the B of opp. situation and bring his N to d3.
First he has swapped a pair of pawns and they have now made the time control. AND THEY HAVE DRAWN!

Scotland are playing USA. Nakamura has beaten John Shaw but Shankland could be in trouble against Colin McNab.

Alice O'Gorman has won.

cdeb

Draw agreed!

Well done Babs.

One of our greatest results in Olympiad history? Collins' draw v Grischuk - then world number 8 I think - up there too. Think he had black as well.

Maze got the better of Jessel, and we're struggling but not lost in the other two.

Meanwhile, Alice has won against Pakistan, Poornima is a piece up and much better anyway and we should pick up another half point on the other two anyway.

Edit - actually, Mark seems to be on the wrong end of a king hunt now, so looks lost alright.

Tim Harding

Good team selection strategy today I think, to let Colm Daly take the hit and not damage Conor's confidence with an early loss.
The game he did not play yesterday could be a blessing in disguise if he gets IM norm chances because it would have dragged down his opponent average rating. He can get a norm with suitable opponent mix and good results if he plays 8 of the remaining nine rounds:

For a 9 round tournament, if a player has just 8 games because of a forfeit or Bye, but he has met the correct mix of opponents in those games, then if he has a title result in 8 games, it counts as an 8 game norm.

https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=174&view=article

Ballynafeigh Chess

I must say Alex was absolutely outstanding, a superb result achieved through superb play .... I offer a round of applause sir!

Tim Harding

Ballynafeigh Chess wrote: »

I must say Alex was absolutely outstanding, a superb result achieved through superb play .... I offer a round of applause sir!

Absolutely, to draw with the World 2 is a tremendous result.

Our women's team will score 3.5.
Unfortunately Geraoirdin missed a neat win.
In this position:
WHITE Kb1, Rb7; pawns a4, d4, f4, h5
BLACK Ke8, Rd2; pawns a6, e6
Here 63...Rh2 keeps some drawing chances but Black (who has just exchanged N for B on d4) played 63...Rxd4??

Now 64 h6 is absolutely killing but White played 64 Rb6? which very quickly and forcibly simplifies to a theoretical draw of R and h-pawn v R with the defending K well placed.

Tim Harding

Round 3 pairings. Open: Bolivia-Ireland; Women: Algeria-Ireland.

Chance for a big win and some momentum for Conor & co, I hope.

Algeria have five WIMs but this could be a winnable match for us if we play well.

Joedryan

Disappointed with the Irish play today, we seemed to go under too easy, but early days.

Tim Harding

Mark Heidenfeld and Karina Kruk are rested today.

Some interesting match-ups in round 3 starting at noon IST.

Bologan (well-known author of openings books) v Karjakin
Mamedyarov (local hero) v Rapport (on my fantasy team - go Richard!!)
Anish Giri v Le Quang Liem (Vietnamese GM)

In the Women's Olympiad Hou Yifan plays today to the relief of her supporters on fantasy teams.
An interesting pairing is USA-Ukraine,
where board 1 is Irina Krush v Anna Muzychuk
and board 2 is Nazi Paikidze (current US champion: why doesn't she change her name?, even though she pronounces it Na-zee) v ex-world champion Mariya Muzychuk.

In case anyone missed it, yesterday's big shock was the Philippines women defeating Georgia whose great tradition (Gaprindashvili, Chiburdanidze etc) seems to be in decline.

cdeb

Santeramo plays as well - huzzah!

Though she's only rated 2001; don't know why I thought she was a lot higher.

Below Le Quang Liem on the Vietnamese team v Holland is GM Nguyen on 2, GM Nguyen on 3 and FM Nguyen on 4. In the Women's competition, China play Vietnam, so Hou Yifan plays Pham - married to Nguyen on the men's team - while Vietnam also have WGM Nguyen on 3 and WGM Nguyen on 4.

Every Nguyen, incl Mrs Nguyen, is on 2/2 across the Vietnamese teams. Every non-Nguyen has dropped points.

Tim Harding

Alice O'Gorman has lost with White. Outplayed from the opening by 2043 opponent it seems.

2bts

10 minutes of event commentary of Baburin Vs MVL -> minutes 44-54 on http://www1.bakuchessolympiad.com/videos/114#lg=1&slide=0

cdeb

Big turnaround in Poornima's game; she was in big trouble, but white missed the strong 21. h5 and instead went in for a line where she ended up losing a queen for rook and two pawns. Not sure did she miss the queen getting trapped at the end or what, but Poornima is better there now. Long way to go of course, and both players in time trouble.

cdeb

Poornima reaches the time control, which was really the only danger there, and should now convert from Q for R up.

Gearóidín can presumably hold her opposite colour bishop endgame? A pawn down in B+3 v B+2.

In that case, Diana's result will be the team's result too. So a good chance of a minor upset here.

Edit - Gearóidín has taken the draw. So ½-1½ down, with surely a win for Poornima to come.

Tim Harding

The result service from Baku is a bit unreliable as 20 minutes after Wesley So (surely?) won, it is still showing his game as a draw. It is showing Ireland leading 2-1 (win for Stephen Jessel in a strange looking final position) with Colm Daly needing to draw an equal ending to win the match. We all know how much Colm loves draws so let's hope he doesn't mess up.

It looks as if we should at least draw the women's match also. Geraoirdin has drawn, Poornima has won Q for R and Diana now has a slight advantage with Q, R and 3 pawns each. But games with that material balance can easily go wrong (or right).

LATER: Now R and 2 pawns each because Diana exchanged queens, maybe to be safe but extinguishing her own chances of winning.. White has a passed pawn on b3 which gives any advantage there may be; Diana has 2-1 on the kingside (no passed pawn) so needs to be a little careful.

cdeb

Diana looking like a draw now I'd say; 43 ... QxP would have been better than the played 43. ... RxP, because then white can't restore material balance with QxP as in the game because the rook is hanging. But would be a long way to convert from Q, R+3 v Q, R+2 anyway.

As it is, R+2 each.

Tim Harding

Colm's opponent playing the ending weakly; definite chances of a win for us now.

cdeb

53. Bh5! is nice from Colm.

And intereting that on the previous move, the computer didn't place it in its top three at all. Top 53. Nc6 (+3.4), with 53. Bg4+ (+1.7) and 53. Bc2 (+1.4) after that. But once 53. Bh5 is played, the computer evaluates it as +5.1!

So the computers really are rather weak here, but maybe that's no harm as it might encourage human players to challenge them with their own evaluation.

cdeb

And Colm wins - so Ireland 3-1 Bolivia.

No updates from Poornima's game of late, but we can presume she won or will win.

So that just leaves Diana in action.

Edit - and Diana draws, and the site crashes on me.

But I'll presume it ended Ireland 2-2 Algeria. Good result.

Tim Harding

Finished 2-2

Joedryan

Good result for the mens/open team today. Two wins with White, two draws with Black, no accidents. Nicely done.

Ballynafeigh Chess

Good result for the mens team today, never looked in danger to be fair but Colm Daly's excellently worked win was the icing on the cake.

Tim Harding

cdeb wrote: »

Below Le Quang Liem on the Vietnamese team v Holland is GM Nguyen on 2, GM Nguyen on 3 and FM Nguyen on 4. In the Women's competition, China play Vietnam, so Hou Yifan plays Pham - married to Nguyen on the men's team - while Vietnam also have WGM Nguyen on 3 and WGM Nguyen on 4.

Every Nguyen, incl Mrs Nguyen, is on 2/2 across the Vietnamese teams. Every non-Nguyen has dropped points.

Time to put your theory to the test: Ireland plays Vietnam tomorrow!

Alex Baburin should have White against Le Quang Liem, another tough assignment but we know now that he can do it!

AND our Women's team play Denmark who scored half a point today against Spain, but have one game point more in total.

cdeb

Alas, most of the Nguyens lost their record yesterday - though worth noting their Women's team did record a superb 2-2 draw against China.

At least for the men, the non-Nguyen lost yesterday while the other three all drew.

Babs taking this one out - he doesn't play against mere 2700s now! - while in a further blow for my fantasy chess team, Alice O'Gorman is rested for the Denmark game.

Two tough games really; a 2-2 result in either would be a good outcome.

cdeb

Multiboard function now gone for me for both sections - don't know is it just my computer or is anyone else having the same problem?

cdeb

Not a good day at the office so.

The Women are 3-0 down with Diana trying to hold a R+2 v R+1 ending where her opponent has connected passed pawns.

The Open are 2½-½ down - a draw for Conor - and Colm has an interesting ending of R v N+R. I think it's a theoretical win (or a loss here, as Colm is the piece down), but I think it's a bastard to actually convert in practice?

Edit - in the event, it ended in a draw 26 moves after the last capture/pawn move. So Vietnam 3-1 Ireland And Nalimov gives the position at the start of the N+R v R as drawn. So I guess white was just seeing if Colm would walk into a fork or into trouble in the corner.

Tim Harding

I've been out all day until now. Great result (from a political perspective as well as chess): Ukraine won 2.5-1.5 against Russia who rested Karjakin for obvious reasons. I'm happy for my fantasy team that Nepo' got a win, though.

The tablebase says that if Diana's opponent had played 65...Ke4 it would have been mate in 33 but after 65...Kc4? White had a theoretical draw with 66 Rb6 or 66 Re6. Admittedly difficult. Instead she played Rh6 and lost.

I was watching earlier on the chess24 mobile app which was screaming out for her to play 37 f5! with a strong initiative.

Unfortunately she didn't sense this was the moment for action (Black's ...Bc8 had just removed a key guard from the e8-rook.)

One point for the men against Vietnam is probably a fair result considering Alex presumably needed a rest and/or wanted to give Stephen a chance to play a big gun. Le Quang Liem played very aggressively from the off and he seems to have played an excellent game.

I like Mark Heidenfeld (who I note made a plus score in the last olympiad) but fear that he is out of his depth these days, especially on board two. Maybe he's too busy with his career to work much on chess? His openings seem too passive and spending 7 minutes on 4...e6 in a standard Slav certainly suggests under-preparation and must have encouraged his opponent.

Conor seemed to play a good solid game and Colm did well to save what looked like a lost endgame.
According to the online engine White should play 84 Rxf6+ (not Nxf6) and after 84...Kg7 85 Rc6 when he can answer 85...g4? by 86 Ne3 (presumably what he missed) 86...Re2 87 hxg4 h3 88 Kf3.

I suppose we will continue to "suffer" tough pairings for a while because of that 4-0 walkover but I guess it's very good experience for Stephen and Conor.

Joedryan

Our top two boards went down far too easy today, but very good fighting chess on boards 3 and 4, thats much more like it. Excellent resistance put up by Colm on bd 4 especially to save that game.