Life in the Chess Olympiad

Hi Everybody. As you know I'm competing in the 39th Chess olympiad in Khanty-Mansisyk for the Hong Kong team. Its all been a bit hectic lately, so I haven't been able to give the profiles of the remaining two members of my team. I'll probably do that on a free day.

So lets talk about what happened today. So there was no accelerated pairings for this tournament, so we were bound to get someone good. And we did. We got paired against Denmark. The team lineups do not need to be submitted until about 9 am in the morning, so we didn't find out our individual opponent until about 11:30 in the morning. Our team Captain, Hon Ki Tsang, decided to take a break today, so we were all bumped up a board. So I started the Olympiad from the lofty heights of board three. When we found out our opponents I found that I was playing IM Mikkal Antonson. Searching the Database, I found that he usually played the French defense. Taking this, and with the help of team Captain Tsang, I decided to play the exchange french against him. However fate decided other wise...

So that was that. The rest of my team also lost, so we went down 4-0. After the game we walked around the playing hall, to the smaller playing hall, where all the big teams were. Most of the big names were finished by then, but I saw Kamsky playing, he looked drawn then, but somehow he won later, I'm not quite sure how. Then we went back to the hotel for dinner and rest. Its been a very exciting few days. The opening ceremony was spactacular, we saw a chess game, with live people moving. And Guess what game they played out? The immortal game by Andersen and Kieseritsky. it was very spactacular. Ah well, I've just found out that we've been paired against Malaysia tommorow. It's going to be a tough, uphill battle, but I think this time we'll score some points.

Cheers Everybody

BKJ123