CHESS #110508

THE CHESS Olympiad will start in Dresden practically upon the heels of the world championship. Unfortunately, this means that Anand and Kramnik are both likely to sit out. While Russia can still muster a formidable team sans Kramnik, India is considerably weakened.

At best, an outfit with Sasikiran, Harikrishna, Ganguly and Co can be classified as dangerous floaters in the race for medals. Likewise the women, who have higher ratings. Although it’s a pity Anand is unavailable, it is understandable that he wants to take a break. Ditto Kramnik.

However, defending champions Armenia are not much stronger than India on paper — Aronyan is the only Super GM there. This shows that if a squad can gel together, it is possible to play for the top honours even with an apparently outgunned outfit.

On paper indeed, the favourites would have to be Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and China. In fact, this could be the Olympiad where the PRC pushes hard for a double since it is the clear leader in the women’s section and the men have strength in great depth as well.

The key to victory is usually big scores logged on the lower boards and a little luck in the later set of Swiss format pairings. A 4-0 last round win can cause a complete turnaround in the results if the other top-matches result in narrow 2.5-1.5 victories.

Dresden may, in fact, go with the concept of awarding victory points of 1, 0.5,0 for a team win, loss, or draw, which cuts down on the pairing luck in late rounds but it also penalises teams that score big wins. While Anand was wrapping up the title, Hikaru Nakamura was winning the Cap D'Agde KO beating luminaries like Ivanchuk and Karpov. The young American GM confirmed thereby that he is a truly extraordinary blitz player, confirming a hard won reputation in internet chess.

Meanwhile, Garry Kasparov was mopping up a clock simul in Corsica and Shakriyar Mamedaryov won a normal event there. But the most impressive result (apart from the world championship) was Peter Svidler’s fifth Russian championship. Russia holds a “super championship” which is a round robin with top players.

There was around $200,000 on offer when Evgeny Alekseev, Dmitry Jakovenko and Svidler tied for 1-3. Svidler clinched the title with 3 points from the four play off games and Jakovenko finished on 2.5 while Alekseev took a real hammering ending with half a point in the play off. THE DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (Svidler Vs Jakovenko, Russian Chps 2008) was the culmination of the last round. Svidler finished an imaginative attack with 29. Rg1 Nf6? 30. Nxf6 Qxa7 (or else 30. -Qxf6 31. Rxf7) 31.Ng4 Kh7 32. Nxh6 gxh6 33. f6 Rg8 34. Be4+ Rg6 35. Rxg6 (1-0).