Tromso Olympics Begin; So Far, No Upsets
Or more precisely, no upsets of any significance at the team level; in particular games the (much) stronger player was occasionally nicked for a draw and even the odd loss or so. But the top 14 teams all won 4-0, and one must go all the way down to the 20th seed to find a team that "only" won by a 3-1 margin. Oddly, the strongest team by far to have a lousy result - though still a victorious one - was the main team of the host country: Norway's top team only won 2.5-1.5 over a Yemeni team whose players' FIDE ratings ranged from 2082 to 2396. It's true that Magnus Carlsen took the day off, as did many top teams' first boards, but the Norwegians still put out an all-GM team.
Blowouts were typically the order of the day in the women's section too, and in both the open and women's sections we can expect more of the same tomorrow (or today, depending on where you are). It'll get hotter soon, so stay tuned.
Readers: There are far, far too many games for me to look through, at least with my current schedule, so please help out. If there were some games that really caught your eye let us know in the comments, and if you have ChessBase or some other way to post those games online a direct link would be great!
Reader Comments (4)
Of course a game that should be noted is the Biggest Blunder of the day by Latvian IM Toms Kantans, a borderline GM standing at 2496 ELO who blundered the queen for a Knight in one move without any combination needed. Just put the Queen en prise.
Incredible! Even at club level over 1500 is hardly ever seen. Nicaraguan IM Mariano Madrigal ELO 2156 cashed in on a easy victory afterwards.
There was a minor upset for Ireland versus Chinese Taipei. Ireland's board 1, Sam Collins (2495), could only draw against Yeh Yang Liu (1920). Interestingly it was Sam who drew with Alexander Grischuk in 2010 to deny Russia a 4-0 victory in round 1. Sam is on the verge of becoming Ireland's first native-born GM. Hopefully he can score some big wins in the next rounds.
As to eye-catching games, I can nominate three from round 1:
Amdouni (Tunisia) - Eljanov (Ukraine) 0-1 Black seemed to have a crushing attack early on, but then exchanged queens and won an interesting endgame
Kojima (Japan) - Movsesian (Armenia) 0-1 The Japanese FM had his opponent on the ropes, missing mates in four and three moves before allowing a counterattack
Third one from a German perspective in the women competition Germany-Albania:
IM Paehtz - WCM Gjergji 1-0 White played what looks like a very dubious queen sacrifice and won anyway.
I haven't had a chance to look at many first round games, but I did like Grischuk's win, just because it so resembled one of those 19th century 'incognito world champion plays anonymous stranger on ocean liner' games. An amusing crush.