2008 Olympiad Dresden

Round 1 Report

R2

R3

R4

R5

R6

R7

R8

R9

R10

R11

Round 4

Games

Pre-Round 4

At last, after 3 rounds of accelerated, back to normal pairings from now on. Don’t lose any sleep over the fact that we are playing the team seeded 154^th when there are only 146 teams playing, the teams have just kept their original seeding.

We are looking forward to a good score, but nothing will be taken for granted as our opponents have already won a match and also have a few good individual results so far. They are seeded as low as they are because all their players are unrated, but take note of what I said in my round 1 report about being beware of an unrated player at an Olympiad (!). 

Other than board 2, this is a match of which we really made hard work, but we got there in the end. Games in the order they finished are as follows:

Tim (W) got an aggressive setup against his opponent’s Sicilian, before B casually allowed an e5, Bxh7+ sacrifice followed by Qh5+ and Rf3 winning in just 19 moves. A great start to the match.

Ioan’s (B) opponent chose a rather mixed Anti-Sicilian setup, and B was soon 2 pawns up, although as in the previous round, Ioan got his Q immobilised, this time on a3. Ioan then sacrificed the exchange for another 2 pawns (4 in total). W got some play, but Ioan was now untangling his pieces, and when Q’s were exchanged, B cruised to victory soon after the first time control.

Jon (B) in a Nimzo doubled W’s c pawns, closed the centre, then started to attack on the kingside. B opened up the position with a temporary exchange sacrifice, and instead of taking it back kept up the pressure. W managed to exchange Qs but B had 2 pawns for the exchange, and later won back the exchange to reach R + 5 versus R +3. W could have resigned well before he actually lost on time (not clever with 30 second increments !) around move 70.

Alan (W) transposed into a French Burn variation with W having exchanged off his centre pawns. W had a persistent pull but B managed to reach a Q + 2R ending which seemed OK for him. Alan kept going and managed to win a queenside pawn to reach a won position.  B generated some counterplay, and unfortunately W missed a few winning lines, before with only a minute or 2 left for both players (plus 30 second for each move), the game was eventually agreed drawn around move 80 with just K v K
.

Bo. 77   Wales (WLS) Rtg - 65   Iceland (ISL) Rtg 0 : 4 35.1   Blackburn Suzie G 1883 - WGM Ptacnikova Lenka 2237 0 - 1 35.2   Wilson Julie 1935 - WFM Thorsteinsdottir Gudlaug 2156 0 - 1 35.3   Owens Megan R 1783 -   Thorsteinsdottir Hallgerdur 1915 0 - 1 35.4   Van Kemenade Julie 0 -   Fridthjofsdottir Sigurl Regin 1806 0 - 1

The women played 55^th seeded Iceland, and unfortunately lost 0 - 4. I’ve asked Susan to produce a separate report on the Ladies matches in future, if she is in a position to do so.

Stuart Hutchings,

Captain, Wales Men