Don't forget--Svidler can play Board One if Kramnik's not playing that round.

I do not agree Mig about female tournament: Pol-Rus, Kostenjuk-Radziewitch, see the moves, that's the game of the century.

Kosteniuk-Radziewicz. Expecially 20 Rd4! 20...Qd5!!

And the opening brilliancy 8.Qxg6!! But seriously, if it's a good game I don't mind mentioning it. My point was that I consider matches between 2600's and 2700's more relevant sporting contests in the great scheme of things than matches between 2300's, or the rare 2500's, in the women's event.

Of course the games can still be entertaining, even very good. I've always said that the reason many fans are attracted to women's chess, and believe that they are more aggressive, is that 2400 chess is more readily comprehensible than 2700 chess. Also, more errors = more tactics = more computer-friendly.

Weird, many of the games at the official site now have fewer moves than they had an hour ago. Great.

In Wimbledon they say, the two tennis tournament, male and female have the same respect from media and public.
Of course, due to obvious reasons, the difference between top players is even greater than in chess.

Kramnik demolished Naiditsch. Definitely a sight. Look almost resignable around move 15 or so. Maybe it was Naiditsch getting caught in something prepared at home (likely), but Kramnik`s precise cleanup was flawless.

In tennis the fact that men can beat women has nothing to do with how well they play tennis. It's pure, raw power. A tennis game between two women is just as good, qualitatively, as a game between two men. Just a bit slower. In chess it's all about the chess level.

I really don't get it why tournament organizers don't make sure that the major chess servers such as playchess.com or the ICC get a secure and priviledged access to the game feeds.
Is it so hard to grasp that every user who sees that the games on the ICC are delayed tries his own luck by going to the tournament website, thus clogging the site even more?

I get, Mig, your point of view.
Discussion about this subject could be very very long, may be better to begin in another item at end of oli.
In any case in few words my point of view is this: I agree m/tennis and f/tennis must be considered two different sports.
But for some reasons could be good for chess to have the same...in any case we already have human and computer chess as 2 different sports...why not three ?

Full mess with results on the official server?
Just look at Round 3 individual board results, and compare with team results shown. For both men and women.

Chessbase and ICC charge money from their users. Why should tournament organizers give commercial servers dedicated bandwidth for free?

In tennis the fact that men can beat women has nothing to do with how well they play tennis. It's pure, raw power. A tennis game between two women is just as good, qualitatively, as a game between two men. Just a bit slower. In chess it's all about the chess level.

Round 3 partial results:

Kamsky 1/2
Onischuk (no loosing chances and no wining chances either)
Nakamura 1/2
Akobian 1

Another victory for USA!!!!

I'd say Germany did pretty well against Russia! 2.5-1.5...not bad.

I have no idea why Rublevsky gave away another pawn in that rook endgame. Did he think the resulting position would be a theoretical draw or something?!

Sutovsky lost with White against 2331-rated Pacheco.

Russia, China (is it Beer Sheva all over again?) and Uzbeksitan lead after round 3 with 10.5 points.

Olimpic champs Ukraine and Eurochamps Netherlands, along with Greece, have 10.0. In the 9.5-group we have, among the rest, Spain (with Shirov), Armenia (with Aronian & Akopian) and Bulgaria (with, uhm, Cheparinov).

India gained some ground with a second consecutive 4-0, they have 9 points (around 20th place). USA barely beat the Phillipines and have 8.5, Israel gave up a 2-2 draw against Peru and are faltering with 8.0.

voss, correction: Germany did 1.5-2.5 against Russia. It is Russia who did 2.5-1.5 against Germany. Just to be crystal-clear on that point before someone takes your words literally.

Now Kramnik in the news for all the right reasons. I'm not his greatest fan, but a really effortless, smooth near invincible looking performance in his favourite Reti stuff. Forget the e4 stuff, this is Kramnik at his brilliant best.

Right you are, dcp23. If it have been Germany over Russia I'd have included a few exclamation points!

This is one of the great things about the Olympiad: the David vs. Goliath upsets. Loads of fun for us spectators.

Btw, I bet Anand used all of 5 mts for his first game.

Kramnik utilizes what I felt was a clever strategy against a youngster: a rarer opening, leaving him (Naiditsch) to deal more based on experience than theory. Pressed, Arkadiy was unable to find an adequate response and went with a move that was easily disproven by Vladimir, thus once again proving him to be a very capable tactician. Bravo, Vlad. Welcome back.

Vlad,

because giving away that little bit of bandwidth to those few servers relieves them of hundreds of private clients trying to get moves from them.
Indeed, they get nothing out of it execpt good press regarding how professional their internet appearance was...

Hello,

Can somebody explain to me, please, how is the scoring in chess olympics.

If team A plays team B and result is, say 3-1, does team A get 1 (for match victory) or 3 points (number or victories in individual games)...?

It´s just raw ignorance.
Thanks
Francisco

Francisco,

The event is scored with the individual results. In your example, team A would get three points and team B would get one point. Match points are (I believe) the second tiebreaker.

Scoring is done by points in individual games. The match victories figure somewhere as the Nth tiebreak.

Yeah, the upsets are one great thing about the olympics! Another is the fact that teams are scored on total points, not match wins. This encourages players to actually try to win on all boards, rather than just steering towards a draw once they win on a single board, as is the case with match points.

Well, I'd think it would make sense in a TEAM event to count match points. As it is, the "team" is just the sum of the individuals.

Allthingshuman had a funny post on belated advice to Anand's opponent. What was with that knight sacrifice anyway?

Albrecht,
The official web site is good in bringing games on-line for free, they handle the load, and I do not see why would I use ChessBase or ICC instead.
Also, why should they give a preferred status to somebody who will collect cash from their clients, like ICC and ChessBase do?
This means less clients on the official web site, and less clicks on commercial ads.
Do ICC or ChessBase pay for access? If not, they should have same rights I have. If they pay, I would agree they should get a dedicated channel. Do you know the real story?

Anand's opponent was probably hoping there was some merit to the sacrifice and if the sacrifice was played with confidence with a self-satisified look then Anand would then think that he was running into home preparation and offer a draw. Of course you can't be too giddy or it's obviously a bluff so just look smug.

Vlad,

"they handle the load" - that was not my experience today; therefore my initial post. But maybe I'm just spoiled by the experience of SanLuis/WorldCup/Corus/Linares/Mtel-Relays... :o))
Don't know if they pay something, but I'm pretty sure they would, if that meant getting a timely and steady relay...

About that Anand-game:

Splendid rook maneuver there from move 23-29: Rf7-(h6)-f8-f7-f6-f7-f8! :o))

It looks like Kramnik didn't even break a sweat.

Individual points lead to much more interesting chess all around, because people don't agree to (as many) early draws. Let's face it - chess isn't really meant to be a team sport, so we might as well get as many interesting individual games as we can.

The World Team championship is decided based on match points whereas the Olympiad is based on game points. You can judge which one draws more interest.

This is incorrect. I don't know about all the World Team Championships, but the most recent one was decided on game points as well.

Sorry, I meant the European Team Championships.

Regarding the (apparently unsound) piece-sac against Anand: I've lately been reading Chess For Tigers which goes into some detail on this sort of "play-acting" (mentioned in superfreaky's comment).

Webb urges doing it whenever you are in a lost position and angling for a swindle. In one of a number of examples he gives, he pulls it off against Reshevsky, and his play-acting seemed to contribute to the favorable outcome (i.e. Reshevsky fell into a trap Webb had set because Webb moved quickly and acted nervous, intentionally trying to signal a LACK of confidence).

On the other hand, if someone of my level is trying to bluff someone of Anand's level, I don't think even an Oscar-winning performance (feigning confidence, or whatever) would make much difference.

Tangentially I am reminded of a position Anand had against no less than Radjabov, that's given in the terrific book, Blunders and How to Avoid Them, by Angus Dunnington.

Radjabov had the initiative and used a rook lift to transfer one rook to the kingside. Then he tried to chase Anand's queen with his other rook. Dunnington observed: "White continues to throw his weight around, but Anand is not one to be bullied." Anand sacked his queen for what turned out to be a decisive attack on White's back rank that had been weakened by the absence of the previously "lifted" rook, which could no longer come back to defend. (This was one of the points of the exercise: if you use a rook lift, keep in mind that your back rank might become dangerously vulnerable much later.)

Some interesting results here in Turin...

China has quietly slipped into the lead along with Uzbekistan with 10.5pts. India is trying to make up ground with another 4-0 trouncing. Many of the big guns from M-Tel played for the first time. Armenia's Levon Aronian played for the first time as well. Armenia looks strong... they're my pick for the gold.

In another match, Finnish player Tomi Nyback apparently played a "Kasparov variation" and touched a piece that would have given Jamaica's Shane Matthews a draw and the match. He denied the infraction and said he was adjusting the piece. The arbiter ruled in his favor. Matthews resigned and left the hall. The controversy apparently had no witnesses, but there are some people talking... just not out loud.

Finland had two GMs and two IMs and was held by Jamaica 2-2 with one FM and three national masters. This tournament has proven time and again that there are no given points. Many GMs are finding this out the hard way by dropping points (left and right) to unknown players from small chess nations. Who would have thought that India would be crushed 3-1 by Morocco (with one GM)? It has been amazing.

I'm sure there will be more controversies before it's over.

The Chinese women remain the story here. They are tied for the tournament lead with a team full of youngsters. No Xie Jun... no Xu Yuhua... no Zhu Chen.

Curious to see how the US women's team does without Susan Polgar. They seem to be holding their own so far. But, it looks like they've got a long row to hoe.

The Morocco debacle was probably due to trying too hard and coach Ubilava's bizarre decision to 'rest' Sasikiran.
Before the tourney started, there was a newsreport criticising India for not scoring heavily against the weaker teams last time. The report cited India's slow start, the first round 2.5-1.5 win over Uruguay in Calvia.
Ubilava said they were now focusing on smashing the weaker teams.

Despite the win (2.5-1.5), it's a terrible lost of rating points for GM Kamsky 2671 (against GM Paragua 2617), GM Onischuk 2650 (against GM Torre 2543) and GM Nakamura 2664 (against GM Antonio 2539). Except for GM Akobian (2575), he expectedly butchered FM Dimakiling (2452). A draw against lower-rated opponents is a slow erosion of mud-packed ratings. Mig was right. The Philippine team was a tough nut to crack. Congrats to both teams for a hard-fought round.

Another great win for Greece today, we beat 2,5-1,5 the Polish team! After finishing 3rd-4th in last year's European Team Championship, Greece began with 3 straight wins the Olympiad too (and again only with Greek-born players!)...

POLAND - GREECE 1,5-2,5

Socko - Kotronias 1/2-1/2
Papaioannou - Macieja 1/2-1/2
Bartel - Banikas 1/2-1/2
Mastrovasilis - Czarnota 1-0

Zhu Chen is playing in the men's section for the Qatar team (her husband is the Qatar board one). Are there any other woman playing in the men's section?

WGM Anya Corke for Hong Kong

I am glad to see Kramnik playing well. I want to see a great match between Topalov and Kramnik. a great match will require that both players play very very well.

The 'If only this was based on match points' award goes to Belarus, as they eked out three 2.5-1.5 wins to start off.

Peace...

Gerald, the players aren't gonna lose much at all for those draws; one has to do exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly over the course of a tournament to have one's rating move significantly with a K-factor of 10, which all GMs have.

As for Kramnik vs. Topalov, people seem so anxious to call it over before it begins, but Kramnik has produced some of the strongest games of chess ever played. He still understands the game at a 2800 level, but should stop all of that 1. e4 stuff if he wants to get back up there. I think he heard complaints about his style too often and decided to try to get into sharp situations, but rarely has a Top 10 GM been smacked around so much in the Sicilian. Kramnik will prove to be a formidable challenge to Topalov if he is in top form, because Kramnik at his best is still a mighty player.

Hotep,

Maliq

My 2 cents on the games relay issue.

As far as I know, in order to get the right to hold the Olympiad, one of the agreements the organizers have to sign is about the game relay. FIDE asks (demands is more appropriate), that the digital boards, clocks and software is bought or rented from FIDE licensed company and there is just one of those :) Anyway, all of that costs around 0,5$ million. Giving it away for free to playchess.com or ICC would be a pretty stupid thing to do. It's much wiser to get all the chessplayers come to the official site and see the sponsors advertisements.

Correction...

In time pressure, Nyback apparently made a move that would have given Shane Matthews and Jamaica a 3-1 margin over Finland. There several witnesses, but the arbiter (who was not present during a crucial point) overruled them and believe Nyback's claim that he was adjusting the piece.

It is a crying shame.

Daaim,

The playing halls are under video surveillance. So maybe the truth could be determined.

First round, several captains were caught on tape giving more than normally permitted 'advice' to team members, for example.

Nakamura will win very soon! advantage USA against poland!

Gata Kamsky v. Socko Bartosz

Who in the Olympiad could win a "best name" contest over Socko Bartosz?

Can anybody kibitz on some games ?