Baku Olympiad

Tim Harding · 05-09-2016 7:55pm

Big wins will be expected tomorrow:
OPEN Madagascar (ave 2172)-Ireland
WOMEN Ireland-Nepal (average rating 1625)

Madagascar have one FM in the 2400s and a low-rated IM, two CMs.

Tim Harding · 06-09-2016 8:43am

Stephen Jessel is rested today so it will be White for Mark Heidenfeld who needs a confidence-booster and Colm Daly who should win comfortably: it's match 45.
Also match 45 for our women's team who have White on odds and will be looking for 4-0. Poornima has a day off.
There's a local derby in the women;s tournament: Wales v Scotland.
Ukraine play the top match in both tournaments.

checknraise · 06-09-2016 9:51am

[font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Madagascar have a young team so it is quite likely they are underrated.[/font]

[font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I still expect Ireland to win but I am also expecting a tough match.[/font]

Tim Harding · 06-09-2016 1:17pm

checknraise wrote: »

[font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Madagascar have a young team so it is quite likely they are underrated.[/font]

[font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I still expect Ireland to win but I am also expecting a tough match.[/font]

At the commentary break, circa 1.10pm:
Colm got what looks like a winning attack very quickly but Mark is equal at best after another insipid opening. The guys with Black are not worse anyway at this stage.

Nepal are not looking like pushovers either. After 70 minutes Diana's opponent could have played 17...f5 winning material but fortunately she didn't see it. There's a long way to go but we don't seem to have an advantage in any of the games and board 4 looks a bit dodgy.

Tim Harding · 06-09-2016 3:06pm

Diana has drawn. In the king and pawn ending she missed a forced win by 41 d6 cxd6 42 cxd6 Kc6 43 Kf5.
Alice has also drawn and it looks like (after 3 hours play) the women should win 3-1.

In the men's match, Alex's position looks equal but maybe experience and Russian technique will tell in the end.
It looks like Mark is winning a pawn (25 Nxb5) and his opponent is short of time but it's complicated.

Colm's opponent has succeeded in confusing matters. The online engine said 25 Rxc4 cxb5 26 Rxc7 kept a clear advantage but after his 46 Qxc4 it is saying equal.

Unfortunately Conor just lost which will probably mean goodbye norm chances.

Later (after 4 hrs 15 mins): Shock as Alex has lost. Mark won and Colm has R+5 v R+3 which we need to win to draw the match.
Karina has won. Geraoirdin is a pawn up in the ending so should at least draw for a match win.

cdeb · 06-09-2016 4:19pm

Colm's opponent has gone wrong in the ending, so a straightforward win there now. But Alex lost, so it'll be a disappointing 2-2 draw against a team of mostly 2000s headed by a decent player (2450).

Gearóidín still has a pawn advantage, but is struggling to make any progress in the last few moves. But with the team 2-1 up, a draw would secure a match win at least.

Joedryan · 06-09-2016 5:29pm

Indeed, a disappointing result but such is chess. On the bright side Mark Heidenfeld won and will get some confidence from that, the team still has some momentum.

Ballynafeigh Chess · 06-09-2016 6:06pm

Really bad day for the men today with a couple of behind the sofa moments

cdeb · 06-09-2016 7:20pm

A rest day tomorrow so; back in action at midday on Thursday.

The men face Wales, and we should have too much for them - though they're slightly stronger than Madagascar.

The women are up against Macedonia; they're seeded just a bit ahead of us, but while their board 1 is having an excellent tournament (4/5), their other boards are down 15/20 points at this stage.

Both teams have two match wins and one match draw, and are placed fairly close to their seeding.

Joedryan · 07-09-2016 9:35am

No update yet on the ICU site. Perhaps the Bermuda party has taken its toll

Tim Harding · 07-09-2016 6:12pm

Joedryan wrote: »

No update yet on the ICU site. Perhaps the Bermuda party has taken its toll

The women's report was up hours ago.
The men's report is now up with a photo of the Irish captain Jonathan O'Connor making a presentation of Irish whiskey to "my good friend Silvio Danailov".

Isn't this the same Danailov who orchestrated the gross Toiletgate protests against Kramnik in Topalov's match at Elista and who has been accused of all kinds of corruption (not yet proven perhaps)?

Joedryan · 07-09-2016 6:35pm

Tim Harding wrote: »

The women's report was up hours ago.
The men's report is now up with a photo of the Irish captain Jonathan O'Connor making a presentation of Irish whiskey to "my good friend Silvio Danailov".

Isn't this the same Danailov who orchestrated the gross Toiletgate protests against Kramnik in Topalov's match at Elista and who has been accused of all kinds of corruption (not yet proven perhaps)?

could be worse, I seem to remember in some past Olympiads some of the Irish delegation keen to get a photo with Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. I can only think they wanted to burn in later in some kind of ceremony.

Tim Harding · 07-09-2016 6:52pm

Joedryan wrote: »

could be worse, I seem to remember in some past Olympiads some of the Irish delegation keen to get a photo with Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. I can only think they wanted to burn it later in some kind of ceremony.

Yes, chess does seem to attract some reprehensible characters.
We have one or two of our own but I normally expect Jonathan to be on the other side of the fence. Hence my surprise at his report.

reunion · 08-09-2016 9:13am

Tim Harding wrote: »

Isn't this the same Danailov who orchestrated the gross Toiletgate protests against Kramnik in Topalov's match at Elista and who has been accused of all kinds of corruption (not yet proven perhaps)?

Tim Harding wrote: »

We have one or two of our own but I normally expect Jonathan to be on the other side of the fence. Hence my surprise at his report.

I wasn't aware being friends with someone was a crime.

I honestly don't see what the big deal is.

sodacat11 · 08-09-2016 10:41am

Being friends with someone isn't a crime but some of the name dropping like "I bumped into my friend Vesko Topalov" must surely be?
*snip*

Tim Harding · 08-09-2016 12:27pm

Round 6 is under way. Alex and Gearoidin have the day off.

Wales-Ireland is match 40 and the women's match against the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia is number 37.

reunion · 08-09-2016 2:15pm

Why does the live stream have a picture of the playing hall taking up like 60% of the space? I'd prefer if the board and the live stream of the playing hall were swapped.

cdeb · 08-09-2016 2:29pm

Conor in for a bit of a wild ride now; his Welsh opponent has sacced a rook for a king hunt. The computer says Conor is half a pawn better - but is rook for pawn up. Should be an interesting game.

Tim Harding · 08-09-2016 3:34pm

At 3.30 Stephen has lost and Conor is a pawn down with a pair of Rs and bishops of opposite colour which may be tenable.

Neither of the other games show any advantage for us. Still a good bit of play left.

Diana has lost but Alice is the exchange up with attacking prospects and Karian has an extra pawn, so 2-2 looks the most likely result for the women.

checknraise · 08-09-2016 3:44pm

The men appear to be going down again and will need a minor miracle by the looks of it.

Mark is much worse outside of a bad blunder by black I don't see how he gets anything out of the game, Conor should hold and Colm is drawn now if white wants it.

Joedryan · 08-09-2016 5:40pm

looks like he is playing for the stalemate trick. actually I cant see how White escapes that

Joedryan · 08-09-2016 5:43pm

oops ignore that - the simple ...f5 and looks like Mark will be lost also. Stalemate was a nice idea but it just doesnt work.

cdeb · 08-09-2016 5:59pm

Not sure why Karina agreed a draw where she did. Computer was scoring it +1.7 - now, granted, the computer seems to be about my strength, but she was a pawn up and the team needed her to win to secure a match draw, so not sure why she didn't play on?

Tim Harding · 08-09-2016 6:15pm

cdeb wrote: »

Not sure why Karina agreed a draw where she did. Computer was scoring it +1.7 - now, granted, the computer seems to be about my strength, but she was a pawn up and the team needed her to win to secure a match draw, so not sure why she didn't play on?

If that is the correct result it is a big lapse not to play on.
Houdini on my laptop agrees White can try risk-free. Black cannot allow a queen exchange but even with queens on the a-pawn should gradually advance.
As the last move was by White, It would seem that she offered the draw. Did she consult her captain?
Her captain should say No, you must play on, death or glory!

must have a jest · 08-09-2016 6:24pm

If you play through the last few moves of Karina's game you'll see it's a draw by 3-fold repetition after Qd8. You have to write the move down and make the claim/draw offer before playing the move.

Tim Harding · 08-09-2016 7:21pm

must have a jest wrote: »

If you play through the last few moves of Karina's game you'll see it's a draw by 3-fold repetition after Qd8. You have to write the move down and make the claim/draw offer before playing the move.

Ah yes, she would not be the first player to allow a threefold repetition by mistake. The computer says 47 Qc7 and if 47...Rb8 48 Qc6 was the way to go.

Ballynafeigh Chess · 08-09-2016 7:26pm

Can't say that I'm fully forgiving of the mens team effort today, it was a very disappointing display.
Ireland best team should be playing the winnable games and experimental ideas rolled out against the impossible ties. Just my opinion that many may differ with.

Tim Harding · 08-09-2016 7:27pm

Tomorrow in round 7 it is Ireland-Namibia on table 51. Their highest rated player is an FM at 2204.
Top match tomorrow is Indian (the only team with 12 MP) v USA.

The women play Uruguay in match 46. No team there has a 100% score. So it's Russia v Poland; China v Ukraine.

Tim Harding · 08-09-2016 7:40pm

Ballynafeigh Chess wrote: »

Can't say that I'm fully forgiving of the mens team effort today, it was a very disappointing display.
Ireland best team should be playing the winnable games and experimental ideas rolled out against the impossible ties. Just my opinion that many may differ with.

I agree. Unless Alex is unwell, it is hard to follow the team captain's logic.
In his report on round 4, Jonathan wrote: "Although it was a tough draw, I rested Alex to avoid having to give him 2 rest days in a row."
Now he has done exactly what he said he would avoid: rested Alex immediately after the rest day.

Maybe we'll see how Jonathan justifies himself when he writes today's report. But it's pretty clear to me that Stephen should not be expected to play top board again when the opposition is higher rated. (Only slightly today but Stephen had Black and Richard Jones has a very good record for Wales in Olympiads.)

Maybe Mark can play again tomorrow in the hope of him regaining some confidence and to give Colm a rest, but it looks as if Colm will be needed to play most of the matches since he is +1 and everyone else is on a minus score.
Probably we have no norm chances now (except maybe Alice?) but Stephen needs help to try and get his rating up to 2400.

Joedryan · 08-09-2016 9:13pm

Ballynafeigh Chess wrote: »

Can't say that I'm fully forgiving of the mens team effort today, it was a very disappointing display.
Ireland best team should be playing the winnable games and experimental ideas rolled out against the impossible ties. Just my opinion that many may differ with.

I wouldn't be overly critical of them today.

Stephen Jessel was up against an IM as Black who played a super sharp and very dangerous line against the Classical French. One slip up there and Black is dead, it is very hard to defend against over the board. Personally I gave up on playing ...Bb4 after 11.Nb3 as it was just too crazy. 11...b6 line is slightly safer but its still very sharp.

Mark Heidenfeld rather untypically decided to castle long in his game and then somehow it got out of control. I didnt understand much of that game.

Conor O'Donnells game was simply crazy. The rook sac, sound or not, maybe should have been avoided. The position was difficult to play and after lots of ups and downs he'll have been happy to get out of it unharmed with a draw.

Then on board 4 Colm Daly seemed to be pushing most of the game but his opponent simply played all the best defensive moves to hold which can be slightly annoying.

Baku Olympiad

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