Ireland at the 41st World Chess Olympiad Tromsø 2014

cdeb

I thought that's what had been done with Sam last time, but on checking, evidently not.

Of course, there's no reason Sam can't play above Alex as white on 1 if required. Duh...

Ciaran

cdeb wrote: »

I thought that's what had been done with Sam last time, but on checking, evidently not.

Of course, there's no reason Sam can't play above Alex as white on 1 if required. Duh...

Are the board orders not set in stone at the start, or am I thinking of some other competition?

Incidentally, the stockfish evaluations on the official site seem a bit strange again. It has Sam more than a pawn better but Houdini on my laptop has him only 0.4 up.

cdeb

Karina's opponent missed a tactic and instead of winning a pawn has lost a piece. So looking good there.

cdeb

Gelfand's game against Tajikistan looks good fun. He's sacced a piece, but has a huge development advantage.

Baburin's game also getting lively; Ne4 is a nice move.

cdeb

Board 4 of Bulgaria v the UAE (2461 v 1899) was analysed as +3.17 after black's (UAE's) fourth move! Always encouraging to see.

Still, white spent 45 minutes on move 6.

cdeb

Karina's opponent has just hung an exchange for seemingly no reason. That'll be over shortly.

Meanwhile, Tunisia are 3-0 up against the Solomon Islands, and a piece up in the one remaining game!

checknraise

Mark Heidenfeld looks totally lost - pawn down and a bad position. Surprising that Colm wasn't playing today after his clean win yesterday.

The remaining 3 boards all look slightly better for Ireland so there is still hope of getting a win in the match.

cdeb

Gearóidín had blundered away her advantage a few moves back, but has got it back now if she can work through the next couple of moves. That'd leave us with three big leads there, and Diana slightly better on board 1.

Edit - actually, that's harsh on Gearóidín. She just missed 46. Bxd5, which I'm still trying to work through myself. Flicking between boards, I just saw her 46th move, and the scale on the left go way back in black's favour

Edit edit - ah yes; 46. Bxd5 and if PxB in reply, then 47. e6 hits black's bishop and the soft g7 square. Very nice. Now to work out why 52. Be2 - which she's also missed - forced black to give up the exchange.

Edit edit edit - there are tactics with Bxb5 and a major piece invasion of the back two ranks. Interesting position, that.

Ciaran

Why is there so little time left in Gearóidín's game? Is the time control different?

cdeb

The site has been fairly slow when it comes to adding on the extra 30 minutes after move 40. I can only imagine that's it.

Great game, that, actually. Technically not perfect by a long way, but ebbing wildly. Her opponent just missed a chance of saccing the queen to force home the queen, and entering a probably drawn endgame. Now Gearóidín has won the pawn on a2 and can consolidate from there. Diana is in trouble on 1 though; other two boards are trivially won.

Mark has lost; Alex is a pawn up; other two games are level enough.

Ivanchuk has lost against Norway B; that tie is 1½-1½ and down to the last board. Carlsen could only draw against Finland's board 1.

I'd be board 1 if I were from Lesotho.

Diana has gone from 4.7 down to 4.7 up in two moves.

Ciaran

They're playing very quickly for people with 30 minutes on the clock though. They've similar total time to Sam's game too after 30 moves worth of extra increments.

cdeb

Just looked again there - her opponent has an hour and a half, not a minute and a half. So Gearóidín's in big time trouble. That explains it.

cdeb

Another wild swing; Diana goes from +8 to -4 in five moves :eek:

Missed 40. RxR RxR 41. Qf7+ winning a rook. Played 40. Qf7+ instead.

Ciaran

cdeb wrote: »

Just looked again there - her opponent has an hour and a half, not a minute and a half. So Gearóidín's in big time trouble. That explains it.

Oh wow.

Interesting endgame there now though she's just missed Bxd5 which was winning. The perils of time trouble.

Ciaran

Her opponent's gone wrong now. 86...Kxd6 was much better. She's playing way too quickly given the clock situation.

Edit: Geraóidín's winning a piece now, crazy game.

cdeb

Interesting endgame too on Baburin's board; the computer now says dead level. B+2 each; same coloured bishop and Alex has the right coloured bishop if it comes to it.

Hannah has won; Karina's opponent is being silly; Gearóidín has just won a piece. The time counter on Diana's game has stopped; wouldn't surprise me if she's resigned.

cdeb

Gearóidín down as having drawn?

Surely if there's increments, you don't need to take the draw?

Don't understand that.

Alex has resigned; 2-0 down.

eclipsechaser

checknraise wrote: »

Mark Heidenfeld looks totally lost - pawn down and a bad position. Surprising that Colm wasn't playing today after his clean win yesterday

They probably wanted to put out the strongest team today. Colm's clean win was against a FIDE 1600 and today's bottom board was facing a 2500+ GM. Don't know how much there is between Colm and Mark but I wouldn't call it from the 1st round.

Looks like it's going to be 3-1 to Iceland.

cdeb

Amazingly, Diana is back in her game! Computer giving her +1.7, from -19 on the previous move. Quite incredible. It looks like black didn't appreciate the potential for zugzwang and tried to force things too much. Now it looks like Diana may lose a rook in mopping up her opponent's advanced pawns, and her own advanced pawns may be too much for black's rook.

Ciaran

cdeb wrote: »

Amazingly, Diana is back in her game! Computer giving her +1.7, from -19 on the previous move. Quite incredible. It looks like black didn't appreciate the potential for zugzwang and tried to force things too much. Now it looks like Diana may lose a rook in mopping up her opponent's advanced pawns, and her own advanced pawns may be too much for black's rook.

Winning now after her opponent queened!

cdeb

Sam takes the draw.

Someone on the twitter feed wondering about multiple teams - Norway have Norway A, B and C, while the UK has England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland...

Ciaran

Sam draws, had an easy repetition.

cdeb

Aronian held to a draw by Australia's board 1 (2513)

Russia' board 4 held by Qatar; 2714 v 2186 the ratings there.

Ukraine draw 2-2 with Norway B.

Scotland's board 1 drew against Azerbaijan. Kamsky, Leko and Kasimdzhanov all drew; Wang Yue is being held.

Fair few big-name surprises going around. I guess it helps that there are so many games of course.

RQ_ennis_chess

Men have a very winnable tie tomorrow against Sudan whereas the women will probably struggle against the Mongolians though it depends if Mongolia put out their strongest team or not.

Ciaran

Of all the inadvisable openings to play, the black side of the Fried Liver against Alexei Shirov must be pretty high on the list. Lithuania's board 1 got his ass kicked yesterday. https://chess24.com/en/olympiad2014/live/olympiad2014open/2/36/1

cdeb

Only ten moves or so into today's games, but we've gotten very little out of the openings anyway. Colm in big trouble; Sam not looking too great either.

Gearóidín's result yesterday has been changed to a win, which kind of makes sense! Only our fourth ever 4-0 win (granted, I think the women's Olympiad was three players till a few years ago?)

cdeb

Baburin in trouble now as well, it seems. Bloody hell!

cdeb

Baburin close on lost now.

Diana pushes the wrong pawn; would have won material with an e5 push. Not easy to see though.

Aronian's game against France looks good fun; could argue there's been three knights sacced so far. The twitter feed on the side is really good for following the madder games elsewhere, though it moves quite quickly.

Ciaran

Sam's just blundered a piece.

cdeb

This is a disaster.

EnPassant

cdeb wrote: »

This is a disaster.

Could the boards be captioned the wrong way around?

Rrydlny

Baburin doesn't normally play 1 Nf3 does he?

cdeb

Nor does Sam afaik (given his works on 1.e4 repertoires)

cdeb

On the main page now as Baburin having lost with white. If the colours are reversed, they're keeping up the charade for a while!

EnPassant

Rrydlny wrote: »

Baburin doesn't normally play 1 Nf3 does he?

1 out of 326 on chess-games.com

Ciaran

cdeb wrote: »

Nor does Sam afaik (given his works on 1.e4 repertoires)

He's played it a fair few times. Haven't found many games where Daly has played the Najdorf either.

It's almost more likely that the site has the colours messed up than three players get hammered by players 300 points lower rated. I don't suppose there's a video feed showing them somwhere.

cdeb

Sam played 1. Nf3 in round 1 actually. He's played 1. Nf3 16 times out of 123 whites.

Colm's position is horrible - for whoever black is. Not seen rooks like that before.

The video feed on the site is all you'll get, but it's sticking to the top games I think.

Best might be to send a tweet. #c24live would get you through

Edit - previous post was nonsense

brianhere

We are two down now, Sam and Baburin have resigned, Colm looked dead and buried but his opponent just sacrificed a bishop which I don't think was a good idea while Lopez looks to be in quite a lot of trouble now.

Rrydlny

If he takes the bishop Ne3+ wins the rook

cdeb

Whatever about 3-0, if we lose 4-0, something surely has to be wrong?

Expected score is about a 3½-½ win.

2-0 down in the women's game too. Gearóidín is lost and Poormina is barely hanging on. Though at least a 4-0 defeat wasn't far off what the ratings suggested there. Shame Diana missed that tactic earlier.

brianhere

Yes sorry you are right he couldn't take the bishop so now the update is we are doing badly on all boards!

cdeb

Blunder on both boards let us right back in it (if it is us, and if 1.5 is "right back in it". Still better than the previous 4.5)

brianhere

Colm got the pawn back and Lopez's opponent has now sacced a knight so its topsy turvey here...

cdeb

The Lopez game is lost again, computer says.

Gearóidín has resigned; 3-0 there.

Remember they did get Gearóidín's result spectacularly wrong yesterday, so the organisers aren't above making mistakes!

Edit - forced mate in the Lopez game actually. So 3-0 there, presumably

Ciaran

Black wins on board 3, mate is unavoidable. 3-0

brianhere

But Lopez is in the wars now, I thought he was going to go bishop to g6 to consolidate?

cdeb

Poormina's a pawn up with black against a 2400 btw. Has two minutes against five, though, and ten moves (giving an extra five minutes each in increments) to make to reach the time control.

brianhere

Well to be fair Colm is putting up an heroic fight, it looks like both sides will get a pawn and then who knows...?

cdeb

Poormina goes badly wrong in time trouble; those rooks are nasty, and the bishop is cutting off the only escape square.

So close to an overall draw against a very strong Mongolian team.

brianhere

Colm's opponent is only taking seconds to move although he has over an hour on the clock, while Colm only has 8 minutes. He is clearly trying to blitz him...