RP Men's Team performance in the 2010 Chess Olympiad

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Pts.	Games	Rp
1	GM	So Wesley	2668	PHI	1	½	½	½	½	½		½	1	1	½	6,5	10	2658
2	GM	Gomez John Paul	2527	PHI	1	0		½	1	½	1	0		½	½	5,0	9	2454
3	GM	Laylo Darwin	2522	PHI	1	½	0			0	1	0	1		½	4,0	8	2451
4	GM	Torre Eugenio	2489	PHI			1	½	½		½	1	1	0		4,5	7	2460
5	IM	Bitoon Richard	2447	PHI	1	½	½	1	1	0	½		1	½	0	6,0	10	2406

Final ranking: 50th place (out of 142 teams)

It was the worst ranking achieved by Team Philippines (Men) in the history of its participation in the Chess Olympiad since 1956. The darkest period of RP Men's performance in the Olympiad was its last three participation - 44th placer in Turin (2006), 46th placer in Dresden (2008), and now 50th placer in Khanty Mansiysk (2010). The results are clear enough: the performance of the RP Men's Team in the Olympiad is getting worse. No ifs, no buts, those are real numbers in your face!!

And clearly enough, too, a performance in the olympiad is not directly correlated to the number of GMs we can produce in this country. The numbers speak for themselves. Isn't it ironic that we achieved our worst performance when we have the highest number of GMs? Remember our team's performance in Round 7 versus Puerto Rico whose strongest player was an IM and whose other three players were "only" Candidates Masters (CMs), yes, not even Fide Masters (FMs)?

And again, clearly enough, the direction of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) of being so obsessively concerned with the numbers - that is, counting the number of GMs being produced - would only lead the Philippine chess to nowhere.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS:

- A rock-solid performance (+3-0=7) by the country's ace GM Wesley So whose showing was highlighted by his draw in Round 8 against GM Veselin Topalov. He was the only member of the RP Men's Team who gained Elo points from the tournament

- In terms of Performance Rating, all members of the team performed below their Elo ratings

- Except Wesley, the rest of the team suffered Elo losses. The biggest loser was GM Darwin Laylo who shed off 6.9 Elo points

- GM Eugene Torre also had a strong showing (+3-1=3)

- Our team had 5 wins (all against lower rated teams), 4 losses (against 3 higher rated teams and 1 lower-rated team), and two draws (against 1 higher rated and 1 lower rated teams)