Olympiad notes

Olympiad is a huge events with about 700 games/round. Just one tournament hall is not enough to accommodate all players, so we have 2 halls: hall A and hall B. Hall A devoted to the best teams with top 27 team matches in Open section and top 20 matches in Women section.

The similar situation was 4 years ago, in Batumi. However, that time it was possible for players/captains to visit another hall during the game. Not in India. You can not see "big guys" playing if your team is in tournament hall B.

I think, in general it reflects the current trend with more and more restrictions. Can you survive with the new rule? Absolutely, but it "reduces amount of fun" from the event.

Our ladies will play in hall A this round as they are facing strong Netherlands. National Team still needs to deserve this privilege by winning today's match. So far, we remain on 44th table as in the 1st round.

And that Hall B is sizeable and yet notably cramped. In my first two days here, even though I'm near the middle of the room with 16 matches to manage, the room is so big and so cramped, that the only Canadian I've seen so far is Hal walking around today. Victor, if you go for a stroll, my booth is between matches 75 & 77.

P.S. and smiling Omar dropped by yesterday, but otherwise, I couldn't see him

Aris, this Olympiad you made a significant progress from match arbiter to sector arbiter. There are about 90 match arbiters for Open section and only 6 sector arbiters. Congratulations! Looks like you cover lowest 16 boards, so we would try to avoid playing in your zone.

For the first time, we play in Hall A today.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Victor Plotkin

Aris, this Olympiad you made a significant progress from match arbiter to sector arbiter. There are about 90 match arbiters for Open section and only 6 sector arbiters. Congratulations! Looks like you cover lowest 16 boards, so we would try to avoid playing in your zone.

For the first time, we play in Hall A today.

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Thanks Victor. I'm actually fifth of the six Open areas. So far, most of the matches in my area have been quite imbalanced, with very few draws. The "early draw" (<30 moves) is one of the greater challenges, as EVERY Arbiter has to remember to check for it, but so far, none in my area. Hope you stay far away in Hall A!

About imbalanced matches. I read some post on CT about accelerated pairings. I remember, FIDE used accelerated pairing on Olympiads about 15 years ago, but last 6-7 Olympiads we have normal pairings.

I don't like accelerated pairings, especially in official events. I know, accelerated pairings were used this year on Canadian Open. However, CO was a non-official tournament with 250 players and just 9 rounds. Here, we have major official event with 180 teams and 11 rounds - a huge difference.

While it was no upsets in round 1, we had some unexpected results already in round 2. Some teams with almost 1000 rating points advantage (total, on 4 boards) lost their match. Croatia lost to Bulgaria, Kazakhstan lost to Tajikistan, Denmark lost to Zambia (!!) and Peru lost to Guatemala (!!).

Thanks to tenacious defense by Nikolay and nice win by Razvan we extend our staying in hall A.

Good. I never want to see you in Hall B ;)

After some very good results (the best for me was a draw against Iran) we lost 0-4 to Holland. They are a very good team and rating gap is almost 200 points/board, but still... losing 0-4 is very unpleasant.

We are still in Hall A, but bad outcome in our next match against strong Romanian team would send us back to Hall B. Like on famous "Expulsion from the garden of Eden" picture.

As some of readers know, Eric lost on time on board 1 to Giri. Actually, it was first lost on time in my career as a chess player/captain in classical TC, however Eric had a very difficult position, and we were losing that time 0-2 with 2 bad games remaining, as Razvan was likely already losing on board 3.

A good video is available, but I can add some points from my perspective.

Eric made move 40 and both Anish and match arbiter (English lady) did not pay any attention. Giri was ready to make his next move (number 41) and show goes on. However, another match arbiter (there are arbiters for every match, he served on match Germany-Slovenia next to us) came to the table and started talking to our arbiter. Eric's clock was on 30:28, and after move 40 you must have at least 30:31 - as a result of increment and addition of 30 min after move 40. That means, Eric made his move 2-3 seconds later and lost on time.

After some verification with computer the results was approved by the deputy chief arbiter. Likely, not the best choice for this important position as deputy chief arbiter. He talked 90% of the time with Anish, which was wrong - he had to discuss this issue with Eric and explain him the situation.

Absolutely, Anish is a famous played, but arbiter still better follow the logic and talk to Eric instead. After all, Giri had no issue with the clock, Eric did. I have to mention that arbiter's level is relatively low and not appropriate for such an important event. We have better arbiters in Canada.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Victor Plotkin

After some very good results (the best for me was a draw against Iran) we lost 0-4 to Holland. They are a very good team and rating gap is almost 200 points/board, but still... losing 0-4 is very unpleasant.

We are still in Hall A, but bad outcome in our next match against strong Romanian team would send us back to Hall B. Like on famous "Expulsion from the garden of Eden" picture.

As some of readers know, Eric lost on time on board 1 to Giri. Actually, it was first lost on time in my career as a chess player/captain in classical TC, however Eric had a very difficult position, and we were losing that time 0-2 with 2 bad games remaining, as Razvan was likely already losing on board 3.

A good video is available, but I can add some points from my perspective.

Eric made move 40 and both Anish and match arbiter (English lady) did not pay any attention. Giri was ready to make his next move (number 41) and show goes on. However, another match arbiter (there are arbiters for every match, he served on match Germany-Slovenia next to us) came to the table and started talking to our arbiter. Eric's clock was on 30:28, and after move 40 you must have at least 30:31 - as a result of increment and addition of 30 min after move 40. That means, Eric made his move 2-3 seconds later and lost on time.

After some verification with computer the results was approved by the deputy chief arbiter. Likely, not the best choice for this important position as deputy chief arbiter. He talked 90% of the time with Anish, which was wrong - he had to discuss this issue with Eric and explain him the situation.

Absolutely, Anish is a famous played, but arbiter still better follow the logic and talk to Eric instead. After all, Giri had no issue with the clock, Eric did. I have to mention that arbiter's level is relatively low and not appropriate for such an important event. We have better arbiters in Canada.

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On this clock model with this setting (13) the flag will also temporarily appear (for minutes).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Victor Plotkin

A good video is available, but I can add some points from my perspective.

Eric made move 40 and both Anish and match arbiter (English lady) did not pay any attention. Giri was ready to make his next move (number 41) and show goes on. However, another match arbiter (there are arbiters for every match, he served on match Germany-Slovenia next to us) came to the table and started talking to our arbiter. Eric's clock was on 30:28, and after move 40 you must have at least 30:31 - as a result of increment and addition of 30 min after move 40. That means, Eric made his move 2-3 seconds later and lost on time.

After some verification with computer the results was approved by the deputy chief arbiter. Likely, not the best choice for this important position as deputy chief arbiter. He talked 90% of the time with Anish, which was wrong - he had to discuss this issue with Eric and explain him the situation.

Absolutely, Anish is a famous played, but arbiter still better follow the logic and talk to Eric instead. After all, Giri had no issue with the clock, Eric did. I have to mention that arbiter's level is relatively low and not appropriate for such an important event. We have better arbiters in Canada.

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The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2e3KISR0fk
Though it is hard to hear what they talk about. At the end the deputy arbiter explained the situation.

Today is a day-off and probably the coldest day during our staying here. The temperature is around 30, which is relatively low for India in summer. It's going to be around 33-35 again before our departure. For some reason, the hottest month in Chennai is May with the average temperature around 38. August is slightly less hot with the average around 35. That means, we got better weather than I expected.

So far, our team also is playing better than many expected. We played with 4 top-20 teams (Czechia, Iran, Netherlands, Romania) in the first 6 rounds. Only 1 team played against 3 top-20 teams (India-1), any other team played 2 matches or less against top-20. 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss is a very good performance for 44th ranking against such a strong field.

Color alternation is less important for team event and we played 4 blacks in the last 5 matches, which is extremely unlikely in any individual event. As a result, we got some funny color distribution among team players. Raja played all 5 games with white, Nikolay - all 5 games with black, Razvan played 4 whites and just 1 black and Eric - 4 blacks and 1 white.

While it was my idea to give more black games to Nikolay and more white games to Razvan, I absolutely had no intention to give Nikolay 5 blacks in a row. However, it still may be good for our team performance, as Nikolay shows 2500+ performances with black so far and Razvan has 3.5 /4 with white. On today's team meeting we joked that Nikolay has a chance to be the first (and last) ever player who gets GM norm playing only black.

But no, Nikolay plays white tomorrow against Scotland.

Maili joined today to our traditional "after breakfast" table-tennis and we had 6 Canadian players, including Raja, Nikolay, Razvan, Artiom, Maili and myself for funny "almost round-robin" tournament. Maili played strongly and fully deserved second place. Honestly, it was a great surprise for me to see table tennis in hotel here in India, there this is not so popular.

Draw against Romania allowed us to stay at Hall A for at least 1 more round. Now we need a win against Scotland to avoid "Expulsion from the garden of Eden". Norway is already in Hall B, despite good results from Magnus. Unfortunately for them, one player can not play for entire team.

Talking about other teams, I want to share my strong impression from Uzbekistan team, which won 4 matches and drew with both USA and India-1. Also, a great performance for Romanian Women team, as they have 5.5/6. GM Gergely Szabo, who serves as a captain for them has a lot of students in Canada and was a captain for some Canadian Teams in the past, including U-16 Olympiad in 2014 and Women Team in Batumi-2018.

For people who are very curious on CT about Austrian Women team. There is only one explanation for forfeits nowadays: COVID-19. 2 players from Austria got it and must observe quarantine.

Austria as a team has a decent tournament so far with just 3 players. Show goes on...

After 6 rounds in a row in Hall A, we finally were expelled from the Heaven by stronger Turkish Team. We didn't play well and did not use our chances. Artiom got a promising position in Open Sicilian with black and Nikolay almost equalized after bad opening. Eric got a nice win against a dangerous opponent who had about 2700 performance before our match.

We play Latvia in a few hours. I remember our last match against Latvia in 2016, we won 3-1 in round 10. They have completely different team now as Shirov (beat Bareev on board 1) plays for Spain here and Kovalenko (that time 2650 GM, lost to Kovalyov on board 2) changed his federation to Ukraine, but doesn't play here. He defends his country and fights against Russians soldiers.

3 more rounds to go. Money time.

The FIDE General Assembly will take place today and tomorrow. The central event - election of president, VPs and other FIDE officials. For many here President election is the most important event during the Olympiad, for others - the last round of Olympiad is a prime event, and some believe that Bermuda party is the central event here. Everyone had his own priorities.

I believe that incumbent Dvorkovich will get a comfortable win.

Tashkent provided an only bid so far for hosting 2026 Olympiad. Budapest was approved for hosting 2024 Olympiad long time ago.

According to Sutovsky's FB:

Dvorkovich - 157
Baryshpolets - 16

Honestly, I expected a smaller advantage, but the outcome was 100% clear.

I saw a good question on CT about norms on Olympiads. Indeed, FIDE changes some rules quite frequently and not everyone is fully familiar with the current requirements.

Actually, there is no significant advantage for Olympiad right now compare to any other tournament. That means:

1. At least 9 games
2. At least 2600 performance (after adjustment of lowest-rated opponent to 2200, if needed).
3. At least 2380 average rating of your opponents (also, after possible adjustment)
4. At least 3 GMs
5. At least 5 title players (FM - is a title player, CM - is not a title player for this matter)

Similar rules for other norms. Reduce 150 points for IM, 200 - for WGM, 350 for WIM from these numbers.

In the past some Canadian enjoyed old rules as Olympiad norms were double-counted. So, Thomas Roussel-Roozmon in 2010 got 2 norms and eventually a GM title after Olympiad (he had just 1 GM norm before the Olympiad). The same was for Eric Hansen in 2012.

Leonid Gerzhoy was just 1 win from the Olympiad norm and a GM title in 2012, but lost in round 10 to Sweden.

This Olympiad, Raja has enough norms and needs to cross 2500 in life rating. Nikolay has just 1 GM norm so far and had certain chances after the first half of the tournament, but lost 2 games in a row.

Win 4-0 is always good, but I expected a stronger resistance from Latvia, especially on first 2 boards. Raja's opponent blundered everything on move 13! Ladies also won and we finally have both Canadian teams in Hall A for round 10.

I really enjoyed the game on board 3 for the Women Team as Morgen Mills played really well after a bad opening.

National Team has a great performance in the hell (Hall B) so far as we won all games there. 12-0. Obviously, we played all these matches against lower rated opponents, but with Latvia the rating margin was not too large in our favor, and expected result was just something around 2.5-1.5.

However, nobody wants to come back to Hall B as we need to score at least 1 team point against Brazil for this matter.

From my Olympiad experience, the last 2 round are more important for the final standing than the previous nine combined.

Canada-Cuba in the last round. It starts at 10 AM local time, that means 0:30 after midnight Toronto/Montreal time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Victor Plotkin

Win 4-0 is always good, but I expected a stronger resistance from Latvia, especially on first 2 boards. Raja's opponent blundered everything on move 13! Ladies also won and we finally have both Canadian teams in Hall A for round 10.

I really enjoyed the game on board 3 for the Women Team as Morgen Mills played really well after a bad opening.

National Team has a great performance in the hell (Hall B) so far as we won all games there. 12-0. Obviously, we played all these matches against lower rated opponents, but with Latvia the rating margin was not too large in our favor, and expected result was just something around 2.5-1.5.

However, nobody wants to come back to Hall B as we need to score at least 1 team point against Brazil for this matter.

From my Olympiad experience, the last 2 round are more important for the final standing than the previous nine combined.

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I'm sure glad I strolled over to take a peak at the Latvia match yesterday, as that was your last time in Hall 2 (where I am).

Good luck in R11!!