Batumi Olympiad 2018

Tim Harding

It's time to start a thread for the Chess Olympiad in Batumi.
The event website is https://batumi2018.fide.com/en

Georgia is three hours ahead of Ireland so play (except in the final round) starts at 12 noon IST (3pm local time).
I gather from postings on the English Chess Forum by people who are there, that the round 1 team draws will be posted at 0800 local time and the actual board pairings at 10am (7am Irish time).

I also see that because Turkish Airlines (official airline for the event) overbooked flights to Tbilisi from Istanbul, many players got stranded in Turkey for a night. I hope the Irish teams avoided that fate. Any news?

Good luck to both our teams!

Tim Harding

Pairings are up on chess24 at https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/olympiad-batumi-2018-open/1/1/1

Play starts at noon Irish team but after watching a few minutes commentary at the start I'll probably give it a miss until mid-afternoon.

By about round 4 (of 11) we should get some big match-ups.

In the Open, Ireland play South Sudan who are all sub-2100. Alex Lopez is rested.

Top match is USA-Panama with Caruana rested. Russia are resting Kramnik and Ding Liren is off today for China,

Our women's team, being in the lower half of the seedings, have a more interesting match, against Hungary. Any positive result there will be a bonus,

As usual there are very few GM games today but ICCD (the deaf team) have Israeli grandmaster Yehuda Gruenfeld on top board and he's playing White against Jobava, so that could be worth keeping an eye on.
Diana Mirza is on top board, White versus IM ANita Gara (2370). Mercedes Plaza Reino and Gearoidin Ui Laighleis is on board 3 both against WGMs. On board 4 Eibhia Ni Mhuireagain plays a WIM. Hannah Lowry-O'Reilly is rested.

On the official website teams are just listed in descending order of FIDE rating. The declared board order won't be apparent until they fix that or the round 2 pairings come out late tonight.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

I think Lopez was the only player to suffer from overbooked flights - he arrived late last night; presumably that's the main reason for the rest.

Tim Harding

Commentary just started with Georgian player IM Sopiko Guramashvili (wife of Anish Giri) and GM Ivan Sokolov.
Of course like us they are hoping to see underdogs score some upsets.

https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/olympiad-batumi-2018-open/1/13/1

A special guest is promised after their first break around 1pm.

For the USA, Wesley So is playing above Nakamura.

UPDATE: Play just started about 12.15. The Irish women's match seems to be displaying the boards in reverse order.
This should be Diana's Game: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/olympiad-batumi-2018-women/1/12/4
If that is right, she has opened 1 b3. Perhaps she has been studying Wesley So's DVD for ChessBase.

No moves showing yet in the Ireland men's match:
https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/olympiad-batumi-2018-open/1/67/1

reunion

Why does the commentary have a tiny board and a live stream of the hall? I'd prefer if it was the other way around!

the Open team board isn't working yet but hopefully it'll be sorted soon.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

Makes some sense to me - probably want all federations/individuals to be linking to their feed and the odd glimpse of your team is probably more likely to bring in random fans rather than the fairly mismatched top boards.

I would prefer if they switch to the more traditional setup of having the board in the large frame from round 2 or 3.

Tim Harding

Irish women's team in trouble as expected.
The Open match is working now:
https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/olympiad-batumi-2018-open/1/67/1

Retd.LoyolaCpt

I think the Open team will have the top seeds in round 2... Would be a pretty sweet pairing. However, others have said its paired differently and we'll get Argentina or someone around there. We shall see.

Bring on the US I say

Edit: not quite, but seeds 2 will do. Ireland vs Russia

cdeb

Wasn't a whitewash last time!

eSwatini (still called Swaziland on chess-results.com) for the Women's team. 1370 on board 1.

Should be another two straightforward ties.

Tim Harding

Might be a good idea to take the ICU database offline for a few hours (if it's not already too late)?

cdeb

Why? Plenty of games databases elsewhere.

I can't imagine the Russian national team going to the ICU website for pre, finding the site down, and going "Oh well; let's open the vodka instead"

Tim Harding

I am sure there are quite a few recent games, by Alex Lopez and David Fitzsimons especially, that they might not find elsewhere.
They will have an army of helpers to do prep; we only have Carl Jackson.

We may soon find out what board Kramnik is playing but I suspect they will field the same four as today.
Who should Ireland rest?

cdeb

Bit on GDPR and games databases split to here

Tim Harding

The chess-results server seems to have teams in the correct declared order now.
So it's clear that Alex Lopez is board 2, and will have White, while the Russians have Kramnik down as #3 below Karjakin and Nepomniachtchi, above Jakovenko and Vitiugov.

As the board pairings are not published yet and it's now 2am in Georgia, I guess we won't see who plays who until the morning.
Maybe the Americans will offer our guys some tips.

If Kramnik plays tomorrow, then they will probably want Nepo' to be White and rest Karjakin, but I think it more likely they will stick with the young guys and save Kramnik for the big match-ups.

The big casualty in round 1 was Chinese reserve Li Chao who lost to a 2200 Moroccan so we may not be seeing much more of him.

sodacat11

Tim Harding wrote: »

Might be a good idea to take the ICU database offline for a few hours (if it's not already too late)?

LMAO. Maybe we should wrap the players heads in tinfoil too just in case the opposition try to zap them with some sort of rays?

Retd.LoyolaCpt

Kramnik and Jessel rested.

Karjakin - Baburin
Lopez - Nepo
Vitiugov - O'Donnell
Fitzsimons - Jakovenko

Tim Harding

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

Kramnik and Jessel rested.

Karjakin - Baburin ALEKHINE DEFENCE
Lopez - Nepo NIMZO-LARSEN 1 b3
Vitiugov - O'Donnell CARO-KANN e5 c5
Fitzsimons - Jakovenko SICILIAN MOSCOW

So far (12.40) Sokolov and Guramishvili have discussed only the USA v Georgia-3 match and are just starting on board 4. They said they would be taking a break after that, and then have a special ex-world champion guest on the hour.

It was Susan Polgar. Now (1.30pm) they are starting to discuss the women's tournament but maybe they will eventually get around to "our" match.

The online engine evaluations (not very reliable!) say three of the games are roughly level after 90 minutes play. Alex Lopez is half an hour down on the clock, though.

Conor's game went very rapidly out of book and is extremely sharp. To be frank it doesn't look great for him but it's a great experience to have a 2720+ opponent. Even if he should lose, playing someone so highly rated will help his norm chances later if he can notch up wins against IM-level opposition. The same goes for Lopez.

Tim Harding

It's disappointing that after 2hrs 50 mins the commentators have still not looked at Russia v Ireland.
Alex Lopez has lost (that is 0/2 for our players with 1 b3) and Conor can't last much longer, but David is not worse
(long way to go of course).
Alex Baburin has real drawing chances but of course Karjakin will try to break him down in the ending.
At present there are opposite coloured bishops, unbalanced pawns on the queenside, and two pairs of rooks, so the initiative is crucial.
The clock is not an issue.
Against most players in the world this should be tenable for Black so, with all his experience, Alex may be able to reduce it to something that even a world class GM cannot win. Could be a very long game.

Our women's team lead Swaziland 1-0 with two clearly winning positions. Hannah is in a fight, though.

Tim Harding

AT 3.25pm they are talking about Karjakin-Baburin.
The live board seems to be behind or frozen.
Ivan Sokolov says Karjakin could even lose, because of Black's widely split passed pawns, unless he can create concrete threats.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

Hannah now winning too. Great play from Alexander to this point. Looks to be very close to a draw now - maybe they'll reach the time control first which is in the next few moves.

I'd agree with you Tim - Very disappointed not only that it took 3.5 hours to get to match 2; but also that there was a deep dive on the US match for the guts of 2 hours over the first 3 hours of coverage.

Tim Harding

If USA hadn't been playing a Georgian team (who also, to be fair, put up great resistance) then we might have had some decent coverage.

It's also clear from the commentary we did get on Alex's game that the board was not current until a moment ago, and we don't know what is really happening with David Fitzsimons either. Jakovenko's clock was showing 0.0 with seven moves to make but that's probably a typical chess24 issue. Their clocks often don't match the actual clocks.
While I was writing...
Both games suddenly jumped forward several moves. We could still get 0, .5 or 1 from this match.

ADDED: It's certainly not clear to me why Alex gave away his g-pawn instead of just moving his king. Maybe there was some line where the White King could walk around the edge and win the h-pawn.

LATER: The course of the game (now drawn) shows that must be why Alex gave the g-pawn. Also there may have been stalemate possibilities in some lines.
Great result for Baburin! Fitzsimons still playing...

Retd.LoyolaCpt

draw agreed on board 1 - saw the result go up on the live broadcast

Tim Harding

David also drew, another superb result, so 1-3 against mighty Russia is very respectable and maybe our best ever against them?

The USA experienced great difficulty in beating Georgia-3 by the narrowest margin. Robson might have won towards the end but blundered in the queen ending and had to play very precisely to draw after that, which he did.

The big shock of the day was in the women's tournament where Uzbekistan beat Russia.

cdeb

Early days yet of course, but seventh seed France lead the way as the highest-ranked team (seventh seed) to be on 8/8. They will face Algeria in a rather unexpected board 1 pairing.

Ireland face Mozambique, which should be a win; they range from 2050 to 2200.

The Women's team were somewhat overshadowed today, but they rounded off a 4-0 win over eSwatini and face Algeria next; at 1860 to 2060, they're slightly stronger than us, and a draw would be a good result, but it's achievable for all that.

Tim Harding

Thanks for that. Giri v Caruana (or So) could be good to watch tomorrow.

There could be a bit of historical needle in that France v Algeria match, but France should win easily. Algeria have only played Guernsey and New Zealand.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

Could be a short game on board 1 today in the open section as Alex has a very large advantage over his opponent. We've small edges on the other boards too so good opening choices.

Similar story in the women's section despite a tougher task - early edges for Diana and Mercedes. Getting anything from that match would be good - Algeria are 200 points higher rated per board and based on their play yesterday would appear underrated even at that. Long tough games and made Serbia (2275 avg) sweat for their win.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

2-0 now with the heroes of yesterday both picking up wins - Alexander on 1 and David on 4. Stephen is also winning while Alex is equal but well up on time at least.

Hannah is losing but the other games are all tight in the women's.

zeitnot

A galling loss on board 2 in the women's in a completely drawn ending.

Tim Harding

zeitnot wrote: »

A galling loss on board 2 in the women's in a completely drawn ending.

Bad team tactics there; inexperience by the player and Ioana, I think.
In such situations where the match is already lost and the only remaining game is about equal (even slightly worse) a draw offer usually pays dividends. But was one offered?

Exciting pairing for the women tomorrow. Diana will probably play Phiona Mutesi, the subject of that great film "Queen of Katwe" a few years back.

The men have a potentially close but winnable match against the Faeroe Islands. They are about ten seeding places below us, with a decent GM, a weakish IM and three FMs. If Alex Lopez is going for a GM norm we should rest Baburin but that might jeopardise the team result?

Retd.LoyolaCpt

Tim Harding wrote: »

Bad team tactics there; inexperience by the player and Ioana, I think.
In such situations where the match is already lost and the only remaining game is about equal (even slightly worse) a draw offer usually pays dividends. But was one offered?

Exciting pairing for the women tomorrow. Diana will probably play Phiona Mutesi, the subject of that great film "Queen of Katwe" a few years back.

The men have a potentially close but winnable match against the Faeroe Islands. They are about ten seeding places below us, with a decent GM, a weakish IM and three FMs. If Alex Lopez is going for a GM norm we should rest Baburin but that might jeopardise the team result?

A few big assumptions there.. I could equally guess that Mercedes’ opponent would not like to lose or draw to someone 300 points lower rated and maybe had turned down draws preferring to test her opponents endgame technique. Doubt the captain would even factor in given the match was lost maybe 2 hours before.

Tim Harding

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

A few big assumptions there.. I could equally guess that Mercedes’ opponent would not like to lose or draw to someone 300 points lower rated and maybe had turned down draws preferring to test her opponents endgame technique. Doubt the captain would even factor in given the match was lost maybe 2 hours before.

I was writing based on my experience as team captain in two team tournaments abroad. When there is only one game left people are often happy to go off and celebrate/have dinner. We had one match in the Seniors where (when we were 0-2 down and my game was only slightly better), I offered a draw and then Kevin James, who was certainly not equal, soon got a draw offer in return. Of course we seniors can be a bit lazy sometimes...

It is certainly hard to understand how Mercedes didn't see Nxa4 very near the end but tiredness/tension/clock leads to such accidents, even by the stronger side - and that is another good reason why draw offers sometimes work.

Just after the move 40 control can be a good time to offer.

cdeb

That experience will vary in fairness. I know at the European Cup last year, our longer games were very keenly contested and I think were more liable to be decisive.

Without knowing if a draw offer was made, it's harsh to criticise the player, and I don't see how you can criticise the captain.

Tim Harding

Board pairings are up for round 4. David Fitzsimons is rested today against Faeroe Islands.
Alex Baburin plays GM Helgi Dam Ziska who won his title at a previous olympiad.

For the women's match against Uganda, poor Mercedes is rested after yesterday's ordeal.

Diana Mirza will be playing the Queen of Katwe, Phiona Mutesi, whose story made such a great film a few years ago. I shall certainly be keeping an eye on that one.
This match is also a good chance for Eibhia Ni Mhuireagain to get on the scoreboard.

There are some top games to watch in the Open, especially (again) the USA match. Stand-out match-ups include
Le Quang Liem v Vachier-Lagrave (could be a Najdorf?)
Caruana v Anand
Mamedyarov v Adams

Tim Harding

Tough looking matches today as our teams start to meet roughly equal opposition.
After two and a quarter hours, the men may be slightly better on two or three boards but anything could happen.

In the women's, unfortunately Eibhia seems to have sac'd a piece for almost nothing, while Diana, Hannah and Gearoidin look roughly equal.
We need one of them to win and actually Diana would have been almost lost if the Queen of Katwe had found the fairly simple 19...Rxe1 (when 20 Qxe1 loses the exchange while 20 Nxe1 Bxf4 shatters White's pawn structure.)

Tim Harding

One hour later, Diana has won a pawn and Hannah is better too. Eibhia still fighting. Gearoidin has some chances to win her ending too.

Baburin drew and we are better in two of the boards.
Caruana beat Vishy in 2.5-1.5 win for USA.

Kramnik just got mated. Russia still need care to draw their match against Poland (Jakovenko should have lost in the middle game).

Azerbaijan are killing England; Howell drew, Adams lost and the other two are worse.

Tim Harding

After four hours and a quarter playing time:

Three draws agreed in the Open so far. Alex Lopez may have a small edge and it's up to him to win/save the match.

Diana won and Hannah has a winning ending.
Gearoidin's ending was one of those nasty B v N affairs with rival passed pawns. I'll have to study it later but online Stockfish says she was clearly better around move 43, then she made a ghastly blunder at move 55 which fortunately wasn't noticed by the opponent (55...Ne4+!) and the Ugandan player later missed two chances to force a winning K+P ending. But she is well ahead on the clock so the prospects of saving this are not good.

Eibhia lost so the prognosis is 2-2 in both matches.

It looks like Dragun will beat Jakovenko after all to win the match for Poland against Russia. He has B,N,P v R. So long as he can mate with bishop and knight.

Tim Harding

So 2-2 in both matches as predicted. Hannah showed good technique to win the ending of R=3 v B+3 on the same wing.

Poland-Russia was not the only result today against the seedings. Nepo' won for them against Wojtaszek but Karjakin only drew with Duda. Kramnik's loss was the biggest individual upset of the day.

Lithuania beat the home nation Georgia's first team 3-1.

It's also surprising that Norway, without Carlsen and Hammer, could whitewash Iceland.

In the women's tournament, USA look like being held to 2-2 by Azerbaijan but Zatonskikh is trying to win R+N v R.

UPDATE: She won it! Check it out at https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/olympiad-batumi-2018-women/4/5/1

One individual star performance is worth noting: GM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (originally from Georgia and a former Soviet women's champion) now has 4/4 for Scotland on top board, and as they lost for the second time today she'll probably get a beatable opponent in every round.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

Tim Harding wrote: »

One individual star performance is worth noting: GM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (originally from Georgia and a former Soviet women's champion) now has 4/4 for Scotland on top board, and as they lost for the second time today she'll probably get a beatable opponent in every round.

Herself and Korobov are carrying my fantasy team! Both on 4/4 (I also have Girya and Batsiashvili on 3/3)

cdeb

Round 5 draws so; last round before the break.

Ireland v New Zealand in the Open; seeded one below the Faroes (who we drew with today) and 11 below us. Another tough but winnable match; hopefully law of averages means we can improve on today.

The women have Malawi, 125th seeds (we're 88th), and looking at the ratings, they should cause us no particular problems. A 4-0 is a possibility, though it's always tough.

Tim Harding

cdeb wrote: »

Round 5 draws so; last round before the break.

Ireland v New Zealand in the Open; seeded one below the Faroes (who we drew with today) and 11 below us. Another tough but winnable match; hopefully law of averages means we can improve on today.

The women have Malawi, 125th seeds (we're 88th), and looking at the ratings, they should cause us no particular problems. A 4-0 is a possibility, though it's always tough.

Stephen and Diana rested today. There's a good chance of two Irish wins today; let's hope!

Tim Harding

After 12 moves and half an hour, Eibhia is a piece and pawn up.
Early days otherwise.

cdeb

Hannah a piece up too now

mikhail

I'm all for supporting chess in developing nations, but no one playing for longer than a week would fall for this. I presume there's just massive corruption in the selection process, and someone's niece got a holiday on FIDE's expense.

cdeb

mikhail wrote: »

I'm all for supporting chess in developing nations, but no one playing for longer than a week would fall for this. I presume there's just massive corruption in the selection process, and someone's niece got a holiday on FIDE's expense.

Oh wow.

(In the interests of aesthetics, I think I'd have taken with the bishop)

Gearóidín winning an exchange now, so all going swimmingly there.

Tim Harding

Well it may not be chess as we know it but at least they are playing. When the olympiad was in Norway two years ago. I believe there were two or three teams entered so they could get Schengen visas but they then disappeared into the vast morass of illegal immigrants.

cdeb

While I take your point, you'd have to wonder if it really constitutes "playing" as such. It might recur later in the tournament now that other teams can see it's something to try for.

4-0 on the way for the women anyway; well done to them. Still all fairly even in the men's event.

Tim Harding

cdeb wrote: »

While I take your point, you'd have to wonder if it really constitutes "playing" as such. It might recur later in the tournament now that other teams can see it's something to try for.

4-0 on the way for the women anyway; well done to them. Still all fairly even in the men's event.

Baburin's opponent blundered a pawn at move 33 and will lose. Alex Lopez is a bit better but short of time with a few moves to the control. Conor is even shorter on time but may be fine. David has a probably won rook ending.

UPDATE: Conor's game was drawn by repetition. Alex Baburin has won.
Alex Lopez made the time control but seems equal now. His opponent will have to try to beat him if they hope to save the match. David is playing for two results and will probably get the favourable one eventually.

cdeb

Conor has agreed a draw.

Not sure how the NZ board 1 hung the pawn; it looked fairly obvious - but pressures of the board, etc, can often make it easy to criticise from the comfort of the keyboard!

Mercedes is showing a draw, but I assume that's an error as she has B+5 v 5 and there's no question of the win.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

women's result fixed now - 4-0.

men are 2-1 up with David probing for a win still but very unlikely to lose unless he throws caution to the wind.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

oops *open team 2-1 up

Tim Harding

David has won. Good feeling for them to have two match wins going into the rest day.