Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008 – Day 7

10:08 am EST. Today we have 2 battles between David and Goliath. Men are playing with Macau and women with Slovenia ( former Yugoslavia, it gives you an idea about level ).  Women look OK for now, but the class often shows later in the game, let’s hope for a miracle. 2nd board, Yuan Yuanling, sacrificed already 2 pawns and has initiative, difficult to say how strong it is. 1st board, Natalia Khoudgarian has, actually, good position with her +350 opponent. But I just noticed she has one hour less on the clock.

Maybe some regular noticed, that I make more comments about women, than men. The reason is simple ( it’s not that I am a woman ) – I know 3 out of 5 team members and in men’s team I know only one.

Yuan Yuanling and Dina Kagramanov - I played once with each ( lost, but got at least 30 moves ).  The last 2 are Natalia Khoudgarian – she and her husband taught chess to my kids and Nikolay Noritsyn – Canadian Champion. I saw once how he played – I could never guess his moves.  

11:30am. So far results as expected – men 3:0, women – 0:1.

12:50pm.  Women – 0:2 and looks like it will be 1:3. 

GMs I watched: Kamsky – Leko and Kramnik – Aronian drew.

2:00pm.  Women – 0:5-3:5.

 

Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008 – Day 6

8:25am EST.  Pairings are ready, so what’s for Canada? As I expected, our women got  a difficult opponent – Mexico with 4 WIM. Men got easier task, they play with Iraq, which have only 2 FMs. As for others,  pair Kamsky – Dominguez looks interesting, Dominguez recently won World Blitz Almaty Blitz Chess World Championships – went undefeated with 11.5 points, 8 victories and 7 draws against most of the major players in the world ranking.

9:30am. Dominguez plays White, Ruy  Lopez, quiet schema with d3 and c3. 10:25am.  Bad news – on the first board for men’s team our GM made a standard sacrifice Bxh7+, but overlooked  some defense and resigned.  Women look OK for now.  In Kamsky – Dominguez game they have e4,d4 – e5,d5, so the play will open.

11:00am. 3rd board for women sacrificed a bishop for 2 pawns, I hope she has compensation. 2nd board looks good.

12:00pm. Women – 1st board just won a pawn, 2nd board won, 3rd is losing badly, 4th in time trouble. Kamsky – Dominguez are close to a draw, i think.

12:20pm.  Our women are leading – 2:1! And the time trouble on the 4th board became mutual.

12:35pm. Men are losing 1:2 and the best 4th board can get is draw I think. Dominguez looks better to me now with pair of bishops. Women are simply blitzing, I like Canada’s position more.

12:55pm.  Suddenly, after exchange of tactical strikes Gata is remote passed pawn up, but with opposite colored bishops.

1:07pm.  Kamsky-Dominguez  - draw. Our Irina Barron went into R+3p vs. R+4p all on kingside endgame.  Isn’t it a draw?  Nikolay on the 4th board is trying to save the match, he is pawn down, but has excellent knight vs. bad bishop with queens.

2:20pm. Both Canadians drew, setting 2.5:1.5 for women and 1.5:2.5 for men, both results pretty surprising to me.

Here is how our 1st board, Yuan Yuanling, won with White:

Bxg7!  Kxg7 then Rg3+ – Black resigned.

 

Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008 – Day 5

It should be interesting day. Our men team is playing with Yemen. Funny,  Yemen put 2100+ rated player on the first board against 2500+, and 2400 on the second one. I think,  Yemen is aiming for a draw creating a match on 2nd and 4th boards. Women’s team is playing against Nigeria, unrated FIDE, for now Nigeria plays pretty decently, but I think higher class should prevail. We will see. 

Carslen is playing with Mamedyarov, it could get sharp, and Kramnik plays against Naiditsch, he lost to Naiditsch recently in Petroff, they are playing Petroff now! It’s another variation.

10.40 am EST. Kramnik drew.  Nigeria team plays well, it’s starting to worry me.

11:25am. Women have advantage on 2nd board, other boards look pretty equal.  Carlsen gave up the bishop for 3 pawns, very sharp position.

12:10pm. Carlsen drew.  Women won on the 2nd and 3rd boards and are winning on the 1st, 4th looks good too.

1:05pm. Men’s team drew 2:2,  women won 4:0. Here is a beautiful finish of the endgame that Natalia Khoudgarian, 1st board, played with Black, position after 46. Kg2-h3 Kf5-f4

Frankly, I couldn’t understand move Kf4 and became really worried.

47. b6 Kf3!! 48. b7 Bg3  

White resigned ( none of the upcoming queens can prevent a checkmate 49. … g4# ).  

 

Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008

First of all, here is a link to the live games ( all! ).  I finally found it on www.crestbook.com:

http://schachlive.dresden2008.de/live.team.games.f.eng.html

I intend to follow very closely as many games as possible,  paying attention to super-elite GMs and also to our Canadian  team.

Korchnoi plays Black with Svidler, French defense.  I support the old guy, he is 77 and still playing!  I remember breaking news on the Soviet radio about the match in Bagio with Karpov and game scores in the newspapers – big articles if Karpov won the game,  smaller if drew and just score if he lost. 

I look at the position after 14 moves, Korchnoi plays pretty agressively!  GM Svetozar Gligorich said: “No matter who is on the other side of the table, Korchnoi wants to win,  with White, with Black, and as Najdorf would laughingly say, even with green pieces.”

Our women are playing with Cuba, they are outrated on every board, but for now they look OK. Don’t have a possibility to follow the men ( I am not at home ) and they are playing with India, so I don’t expect very good result.

After move 21 Korchnoi’s weak pawn e6 is under attack, he advances it right away. I like how he plays,and it’s  against Svidler!. Of course, 30 years ago he would beat not only Svidler, but anybody.

Korchnoi is still fighting, 42 moves, R+B vs. R+B and 5 pawns each.

Our women are doing badly, looks like the result will be 3.5:0.5. Men are 1:1 for now.

Old guy sacrificed a pawn and looks like built a fortress … he drew after 56 moves, incredible!

Women finished, unfortunately exactly as I predicted 0.5:3.5, too bad.  Men lost 1.5:2.5.