Aronian - Carlsen is kind of zzzz right now.
2014 Chess Olympiad (Tromsø)
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US in trouble against Canada.
Germany in trouble against Qatar. :o
The international advisors have ekected to add Chess to their games
Geezus Effin Kryste, it looks like the U.S. is losing to Canada now too. The Netherlands wasn't enough, no, they had to double down on the WTF??
Edit: OK, maybe Shanky can win to salvage at least a drawn match.
Well, edit again: No, I guess not. Apparently, Nakamura feels compelled to demonstrate yet again his amazing inconsistency & show the world why he can't qualify for the candidates tournament. Now he looks like he'll be lucky to draw, its likely lost. Yay Canada.
Cuba with the advantage over Israel.
Another GM about to lose to a 2300. Stuff happens.
Chess as part of the regular Olympics?
I think Krammits winning.
Goooo Volodjaaaaaa!!
Only draw for Russia against Bulgaria though.
Ivanchuk continues to play horribly and just hung a piece with white against Kasimdzhanov.
Nobody speaks a word about Serbia, one of the tournament leaders with 100% score before today's match. After today's draw with Azerbaijan this has to change. The serbs clearly know something if they can successfully fight a team equipped with super GMs with their mere 2600 rated forces.
The Serbs haven't played any real top teams yet though, I think they will fall down quite a bit after they play a few of Russia, Armenia, Ukraine, France, Hungary, etc.
fabelhaft wrote:
The Serbs haven't played any real top teams yet though, I think they will fall down quite a bit after they play a few of Russia, Armenia, Ukraine, France, Hungary, etc.
Azerbaijan is the tournament leader, with two super GMs. If Azerbaijan is not a real top team, then I don't know what a real top team is...
"If Azerbaijan is not a real top team, then I don't know what a real top team is..."
The real top teams are the highest rated teams, Azerbaijan with Safarli, Mamedov and Guseinov is far from as strong as before, without Gashimov and with a much weaker Radjabov than a few years ago.
Very good game by Krammit, a bit of revenge against Topalov. Onischuk & Shanky are doing very well. The verdicts still out on Naka. Kamsky, well what can we say? Maybe he needs ANOTHER rest day.
So Kramnik won?
Looking closer at the team ranking Azerbaijan is actually as high as 8th, I didn't think they were top ten. Anyway, it's the only top 15 team Serbia played this far, and they could get a tough draw in the next round.
Uzbekistan is another surprise team, they won against Ukraine today after drawing Germany in the last round and winning all previous matches (including 3.5-0.5 against the higher rated Brazil).
It seems that some of the regular GMs get intimidated by the famous GMs. This causes them to play weak moves, presumably in the hope of avoiding preparation, but it doesn't seem to work well for them. For example: Kramnik-Al Modiahki. Black plays an unusual 7th move, and then drops a clear pawn 10 moves later, and a piece on move 25.
Unless Kramnik has refuted the King's Indian, which I doubt he has, then black should just play the regular good moves, instead of his own rubbish ones.
Something similar happened with Grischuk playing black in a Sicilian, where white tried to play a delayed Morra gambit. This was worse than playing the gambit immediately.