There were quite a few upsets in the overal Olympiad. The biggest shock was #48 Portugal over #9 Azerbaijan by the score of 3.5-.5! Results can be found here.
#48 Portugal (POR) – #9 Azerbaijan (AZE) 3.5-.5
#81 Mongolia (MGL) – #69 Tunisia (TUN) 3.5-.5
#50 Australia (AUS) – #15 Romania (ROM) 3-1
#66 Peru (PER) – #29 Switzerland (SUI) 3-1
#104 Tajikistan (TJK) – #91 Wales (WLS) 3-1
#61 Colombia (COL) – #28 Croatia (CRO) 2.5-1.5
#56 Egypt (EGY) – #31 Sweden (SWE) 2.5-1.5
#10 Bulgaria (BUL) – Indonesia (INA) 2-2
#63 Luxembourg (LUX) – Philippines (PHI) 2-2
#69 Singapore (SIN) – #39 Lithuania (LTU) 2-2
#40 Bosnia Herzegovina (BIH) – #5 France (FRA) 2-2
#41 Macedonia (MKD) – #23 Moldova (MDA) 2-2
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
azerbagina needs radjabov !!
England wins the 1st round 3.5-.5 without Michael Adams but with Nigel Short.
England wins the 2nd round 2.5-1.5 with Michael Adams but without Nigel Short.
Maybe playing Short and Adams together and the victory would have been 3-1.
How do you explain so many upsets?
Some come to play for pride. Others come to have a good time and meet old friends.
Some prepare for a year or more for the Olympiad. Others prepare when they arrive at the site.
These are only two of the many reasons.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
http://www.SusanPolgar.com
Bo. 2 India (IND) Rtg – 81 Mongolia (MGL) Rtg 0 : 0
23.1 GM Anand Viswanathan 2803 – FM Batchuluun Cegmed 2303
23.2 GM Sasikiran Krishnan 2692 – Gundavaa Bayarsaihan 2124
23.3 GM Harikrishna P 2680 – Bayarmandah Balgan 2042
23.4 GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar 2578 – GM Hatanbaatar Bazar 2433
Mongolia is hiding their GM on board 4!! What strategy!! Anand faces the worst opponent he has ever played in the laast 20 years!!
Thanks, Susan, that explains the upsets. It also proves your earlier point of the need of game preparation well ahead before the tournament.
for India fans:
The splendid start provided by Koneru Humpy went in waste after blunders by Swati Ghate and D Harika saw India settling for a draw with Vietnam in the second round of the Women’s chess Olympiad here.
The Indian eves looked set for a 3-0 victory after Humpy did the early damage on the first board but subsequent mistakes by Ghate and Harika produced the 1.5-1-5 result.
Humpy displayed her class against Nguyen Thi Thanh An who was outplayed in a Queen pawn opening game playing white.
The Indian lured the Vietnamese girl into sacrificing a Bishop on the 16th move and when she played it hoping for an attack against the King, Humpy digested the offered material and unleashed her counter-attack in quick time.
Guiding her Bishop and Queen in missile-like fashion, Humpy won in just 27 moves.
On the second board, Hoang Thi Bao Tram did not get a good position out of the opening playing black and the trend favoured Harika in the middle game as well.
However, the young Women Grandmaster did not take advantage of the situation and was on the defensive in a Opposite coloured Bishop endgame. Eventually, the peace was signed after 88 moves.
Swati Ghate suffered an unexpected loss on the third board as Mary Ann Gomes was rested for the second day running. Le Thanh Tu scored the equaliser for Vietnam after Swati went for an erroneous plan and got her queen trapped in the middle of the board in this 36-mover.
In the next round, the 9th seeded Indians, who beat Brazil 3-0 in the opening encounter, meet Croatia.
Hello Dutchmen,
Why isn’t the great GM Jan Timman playing on the Olympics?
We lost the campaign for FIDE Presidency.
http://www.chessfidelity.com/elections.php?txt_id=209
Calvia Olympiad 20o4 trivia:
As players of Bermuda and Papua New Guinea have refused the dopingcontrol, Bermuda becomes 3,5 and Papua Papua New Guinea 7,5 points for the final ranking list (and only there!) denied.
http://schach.wienerzeitung.at/Tnr1881.aspx?lan=1
Cool! Calvia 2004 Olympiad:
Polgar Zsuzsa GM 2567 USA Rp:2622
Rd. SNo Name Rtg FED Rp Pts. Res. Bo.
1 151 WIM Sanchez Castillo Sarai 2141 VEN 2183 6.5 s 1 1
2 272 IM Cmilyte Viktorija 2442 LTU 2550 8.5 w ½ 1
3 271 WIM Muzychuk Anna 2383 SLO 2413 7.5 w ½ 1
4 102 IM Kosteniuk Alexandra 2508 RUS 2539 7.0 s ½ 1
5 248 GM Cramling Pia 2477 SWE 2491 8.5 s ½ 1
6 195 GM Chiburdanidze Maia 2503 GEO 2531 8.5 w 1 1
7 201 GM Koneru Humpy 2503 IND 2521 8.5 s ½ 1
8 161 IM Danielian Elina 2437 ARM 2359 7.0 w ½ 1
9 91 IM Radziewicz Iweta 2449 POL 2476 7.0 w 1 1
10 22 GM Xie Jun 2569 CHN 2597 7.0 s ½ 1
11 106 WGM Repkova Eva 2410 SVK 2384 6.5 s 1 1
12 51 IM Madl Ildiko 2369 HUN 2402 6.0 w 1 1
13 191 IM Skripchenko Almira 2474 FRA 2449 6.5 s 1 1
14 261 WIM Nguyen Thi Thanh An 2345 VIE 2396 8.0 w 1 1
One reason for the upsets is that the “very weak” players (like New Zealand according to Susan’s definition) are not so weak at all. They may be amateurs but they can train well with internet and published materials and come in to fight.
The Elo system is not magic. You have to play moves. 180 point Elo difference is only 3:1 expected difference in score.
With many hundreds of games, false belief in the supremacy of Elo, and fighting ‘little’ teams, many “upsets” are sure to happen.
Susan has lost to 2230 when she was over 2500. Statistically, its bound to happen.
Why is it a problem. It’s not about discipline or training, it’s just the way of things in chess.
Can anybody see the live games on the official website?
Because I can’t, for some reason.
Can anybody explain what’s wrong with this game?
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1411523
“Can anybody see the live games on the official website?”
No, I downloaded what they asked and still NOTHING.
There are so many simpler viewers they could have used.
What a waste.
“Can anybody explain what’s wrong with this game?
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1411523 “
I can. Since a few years ago, maybe more, organizers started using electronic DGT boards. Since then, about 1-20% of all games are corrupted. When a human touches a wrong square, the software starts with its bugs. You will find in databases, even from World Championships, hundreds of moves that were never played. Unfortunately, most of the corrupted games re from GM or Super GM tournaments, which makes things even worse.
Susan is promoting here the Monroi system of recording moves, which solves this problem, but a long time is needed for the human race to understand that it can fly to the Moon.
I don’t trust any game moves on the Internet since 5-10 years ago. Only for fun. Books and magazines, yes, I trust these more.
All of this is just a guess, of course, no harm intended to the genius DGT inventors. Players who use them can confirm, I never played on one.
The arbiters checking out the electronically wrongly recorded moves? Come on, they’re not payed enough for that, too.
Isn’t 13 Rounds way too much for 146 teams?
No, its too little. Best would be 145 rounds.
Did you notice the leaders in (w) – Lithuania, came with only three women? They have a perfect score so far!
No, they came with four women, but only top three played in the three rounds! Sound familiar?
“No, its too little. Best would be 145 rounds.”
With double robin-rounds? To even up the colors?
Why are the colors uneven in the Womens Olympiad?
This gives such a large advantage to the ones having White pieces two times and Black pieces only once! So, if you get lucky with the pairing colors, there you go!
There should be four boards for women, too, evening up the score with the open (men) tournament.