GM Topalov vs GM So game annotated

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece ["Bad show"], BusinessWorld, 11 October 2010)

2010 Olympiad
Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia
Sept 21-Oct 3, 2010

Final Top standings

(in tie-break order)

1. Ukraine, 19/22

2. Russia 1, 18/22

3-4. Israel, Hungary, 17/22

5-10. China, Russia 2, Armenia, Spain, United States, France, 16/22

11-19. Poland, Azerbaijan, Russia 3, Belarus, Netherlands, Slovakia, Brazil, India, Denmark, 15/22

149 teams participating

The Philippines did not do too well in this Olympiad by finishing 50^th, lower than our seeding of 37^th. We defeated five teams (Korea, Paraguay, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and Turkmenistan), all of whom were rated lower than us.

Our two draws were against Scotland (bad) and Argentina (OK), and four teams defeated our country: Spain, Belarus, Bulgaria and Estonia. Narrowly losing to Spain and Bulgaria should be considered a good result, but then we were expected to draw against Belarus and defeat Estonia.

It was to be expected of course that there were some grumblings seen and read in both print and Web media. Many of them were actually quite idiotic, but not all, some made sense.

From the Philippine Chess Portal of Hector Santos I saw this posting from someone who called himself obiwankanoebi (hope he doesn’t mind me translating it to English).

"If we can recall the 2008 Olympiad in Dresden our team officially placed 46^th. Now in Russia 2010 officially number 50! What is happening to us?

"Previously International Grandmasters Eugene and Joey complained that the round-robin qualifier to determine our Olympiad squad was too long and tiring, and there was even no prizes or appearance fees offered. There were even some suggestions that the two be seeded straight into the team without need to pass through any qualifiers because any they have high ratings and are very experienced. Anyway, the team that qualifier through the various eliminations and played in Dresden 2008 performed miserably.

"This year our team members were chosen based on performance and rating, so what happened in Khanty-Mansiysk 2010 -- they still performed miserably! They even replaced GM Joey and now it seems that GM Joey was right that the team needed him.

"You know what? I think that there is a common problem for our national teams, be it Olympiad or Asian team or any other team competition -- My opinion is that we are handicapped by having no clear training program and common team exposure. Also, we do not have a strong team captain -- perhaps a committed training director who has the clout to force the players to observe their training regimen.

"There is no clear-cut direction for us -- where have the funds that the Philippine Sports Commission set aside for chess gone? We need the national leadership to sit down and seriously review our chess programs. We cannot go on like this that there is no grass-roots development, that the only thing the federation does is organize two or three international tournaments which usually the foreigners win.

"The players who are to represent us in international competition should not be allowed to compete without first passing through a training program -- there have been too many episodes, either men’s or juniors or kiddies, where we were pitiful.

"We should not rely on one or two players to give glory to Philippine chess."

Ten years ago the Chess Society actually tried this. The Philippine Chess Federation (PCF) forms the teams and then sends them to the Chess Society for training, and our experience has been good: Darwin Laylo, a complete unknown then, finished half a point behind Sasikiran in the Asian Junior Championship, but leaving in his dust several highly rated and regarded players. We finished tied for second in the 1999 Asian Team Championship although we fielded "a very weak team" as one of the chess journalists wrote at that time. And GM Joey went to the World Championship in Las Vegas and really put a scare into the eventual silver medalist.

Yes, obiwankanoebi, your formula works.

None of our players were in especially good form. Wesley doesn’t seem to have snapped out of his draw slump, and everybody else lost rating points. It is a bit sad, but the best game of anybody in our team is a draw -- the one Wesley achieved against Topalov. Let us take a look at it.

Topalov, Veselin (2803) -- So, Wesley (2668) [D87]
39th Olympiad Men Khanty-Mansiysk RUS (8.18), 29.09.2010
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Final position

A good fighting draw.

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