Olympiad Round 1 (in progress)

First day, first round, and things are looking good for both the men’s and women’s teams.  The men have been paired with Bahrain; the women with Nigeria.  My opponent unfortunately got his queen trapped in the opening, which is why I’m able to write this while the other seven games are still going.

George should win a rook ending, assuming he finds the right continuation from when I left.  Solo similarly was looking good in his ending.  Darryl was a pawn up but facing some (probably insufficient) compensation.  All in all, I’d predict a score 3.5-0.5.

In the women’s, both Emma and Giang were just about to convert their wins when I left.  Biljana and Arianne were both in level contests.  I predict again 3.5-0.5.

As far as Khanty Mansiysk goes, it’s been pretty good going so far.  I have to say, the place looks quite different from how I remember it (a metre high with snow!).  The newly built venue (‘Tennis Centre’) and hotel (‘Olympiski’) are very slick indeed.  And the food has been quite good too, and more inportantly, very plentiful.  Apparently 150 chefs from Leningrad were shipped in.

The rooms are also plain but nice, but they do come with one surprise: spcae-age showers that shoot water in three directions.  The shower actually looks quite out of place in the stereotypical three-star room, kind of like a Dalek at a Russian dinner party.

All in all, good accommodation, good food, good organisation so far.  There has been only one big complaint, though.

The lifts.

You may not know this, but 90% of the world’s elevators are made by Otis.  I can only assume that these Siberian ones aren’t.  Forget the fact that you have the entire hotel population trying to use the lifts at exactly the same times each day (for instance, 1.55pm, before the buses leave at 2.00…), which is bad enough.

The big fail, however, is that pressing the down button, say, only sends a signal to that elevator, not all elevators, as is the norm.  You have to press the down button on all six elevators to get the effect of a normal lift, which people consequently do.  But because of this, once you get on a lift, the five other elevatorsare still being called to your floor, even if there’s noone there.

The bottom line is that, when we get on the lift from level 11 each day, our ride will stop at every single floor on the way down, almost without exception.  I’ve never said this before, but this is an epic elevator fail.

Lifts aside, all seems to be going well, and it’s nice to play “spot the chess celebrity” in the dining hall/bar/hall.  Everyone in the Australian camp seems to be positive and feeling good about the tournament, and particularly our Olympiad first-timers are making good starts.

I took some photos from the opening ceremony and beyond, but unfortunately Anastasia (our interpreter – every country gets one) has my camera phone.  I’ll upload them later, but for now, I have to head down to dinner.

Which means, of course, an elevator ride.