Olympiad 2010 Wrap: The Chess

Now that the 39^th World Chess Olympiad has finally come to a close, it’s time to take stock and give a bit of a review of the tournament, the performances, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Necessarily, and conveniently for this website’s readership demographic, this will be divided into both chess and non-chess components.

To start with, both the Australian Men’s and Women’s put in respectable and satisfactory performances, without anything extraordinary.  The men, seeded 49^th, finished tied for this spot, but the score really could have been much higher.  Losses in rounds 8 and 9 by the tightest of margins against very strong teams, followed by an unexpected draw against Singapore in the penultimate round, prevented what could have been one of our best Olympiad placings ever.  The women finished ahead of their seeding despite a final-round loss, thanks to a spirited performance in the second half of the tournament.

While all the men performed close to rating, my award for player of the team must go to our board one, Zong-Yuan Zhao.  His list of opponents would make a tournament organizer drool, and at one stage he was performing above 2700.  Ravaged by flu in the second half of the event, Yuan still managed a plus score and performed the highest above expectation of any member of our team.  In the women’s, Giang Nguyen’s performance was quite amazing.  The sickest Australian throughout the event, she scored more points and also gained more rating points than any member of the Australian squad, male or female.   

The best team member of the Australians was easily Darryl Johansen, who, as Leonid put it, “knows more about chess than the rest of the team combined.”  Not only is Darryl’s understanding and knowledge of chess inexhaustible, he is more than willing to share it with anyone who needs assistance.  Not only did he help out our own team, but he also helped prepare members of the women’s team, even on days when he himself was playing.  To top it all off, Darryl’s own performance was very respectable, and his determination and commitment to the team was personified by his six-hour, 130-move victory in the final round.

Emma Guo also deserves special mention as the youngest member of the squad in her first ever Australian representation in the adult ranks.  She put in a very respectable performance, picking up a number of rating points and solidly holding up as the third-best performer of the women.  She will need to learn to play a little more solidly in future, though: attacking chess in individual events is one thing, but no draws in eight games is grey-hair-growing material for team captains!

 Of the Olympiad overall, besides seeing the world’s best players (particularly Ivanchuk and Aronian) in outstanding form, the real highlight for me was seeing the success of Russian prodigy Ian Nepomniachtici, well-known to some Australians as the boy who overtook our own Ian Rogers as the highest-rated “Ian” in the world.  (For the record, the Czech David Navara, who drew with Yuan in the Olympiad, is the highest rated “David”.)  I’ve watched this guy play for a while now, and he’s really, really good, but never gets mentioned in the high ranks of the Russian superstars.  Well, after his medal-winning 2821 performance on board one for Russia 2 in this Olympiad, maybe the Russian chess federation will start to sit up and take notice.

The other guy worth a note is the sixteen year old Dutch star Anish Giri.  A 2730 performance on board three is just phenomenal and compliments his hefty 2677 ELO, but I feared he might turn out to be an arrogant twat in real life, like so many other chess prodigies.  However, I was pleasantly surprised as I chatted to him along with the other Dutchies – an all-round nice guy to go with a fearsome talent.

Unfortunately, my mate Sam Collins from Ireland just missed out on his final grandmaster norm, but his performance shouldn’t be forgotten.  Spearheading the Irish team for the first time, he put in a blistering attacking display, as well as being one of the most popular men in the bar in the evenings.  Overall, an all-round result that any Irishman could aspire to.

In the women’s event, Zeinab Mamedjarova stood out, making a men’s grandmaster norm in her role as board one for Azerbaijan.  While I know the younger sister quite well, I’ve rarely spoken to Zeinab, the sister of world heavyweight Shak Mamedjarov.  But a divorce and a baby on from the last Olympiad, she really put in an amazing effort. 

Another board one worthy of praise for her performance under the circumstances is my good friend Elizabeth Paehtz from Germany.  Sustaining a heavy back injury before the tournament and suffering a bad flu and some animosity with the German federation during the event, Lizzie powered through undefeated with a very nice 2520 performance.  Lizzie is also one of the coolest girls in international chess and, despite her ailments, managed to once again bring her famous funky fashion style to the tournament hall.  Pop trivia: Her brother and father are also grandmasters, and the latter was also in Khanty-Mansiysk… as captain of Switzerland!

Finally, special mention to my good mate Gawain Jones.  Put in the English team as reserve, he initially didn’t get much of a showing for the first half of the tournament, which was a bit frustrating.  However, the captain showed faith in him after the first rest day, and Gawain delivered, finishing as the second-highest performance in the team at six points and a TPR of 2647, and the only Englishman to gain ELO points.  Not only that, but Gawain even helped me out for one of my games, showing that my former coach has allegiances beyond the red and white!

Overall, the Olympiad was interesting and inspiring from a chess perspective.  Ukraine thoroughly deserved the gold in the men’s, as they’ve been so close for so many years.  It was a relief to see Russia get the women’s gold, given how much speculation there has been that the girls just can’t play together in team events.  Both Australian teams performed respectably and there were some very good signs for future potential, although I suspect the make-up of both teams may be quite different by 2012. 

And for those like the top Russian team and even world number one Magnus Carlsen, who all had Olympiads to forget, there’s another two years to recover and rebuild before Istanbul 2012.  At least they can take some comfort in that the overall Khanty-Mansiysk experience was exceptional, and certainly above that being endured by the Commonwealth Games participants in India.  No Delhi Belly at our Olympiad, thank you very much.