Ukraine wins Olympiad

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 08 October 2010)









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

Final Top standings
(in tie-break order)

1. Ukraine (seeded 2nd, Ivanchuk, Ponomariov, Eljanov, Efimenko, Moiseenko), 19/22

2. Russia 1 (seeded 1st, Kramnik, Grischuk, Svidler, Karjakin, Malakhov), 18/22

3-4 Israel (seeded 11th, Gelfand, Sutovsky, Smirin, Rodshtein, Mikhalevsky), Hungary (seeded 5th, Leko, Almasi, Polgar, Berkes, Balogh), 17/22

5-10. China (seeded 3rd, Wang Yue, Wang Hao, Bu Xiangzhi, Zhou Jianchao, Li Chao), Russia 2 (seeded 4th, Nepomniachtchi, Alekseev, Vitiugov, Tomashevsky, Timofeev), Armenia (seeded 6th, Aronian, Akopian, Sargissian, Pashikian, Grigoryan), Spain (seeded 16th, Shirov, Vallejo Pons, Salgado Lopez, Magem Badals, Alsina Leal), United States (seeded 9th, Nakamura, Kamsky, Onischuk, Shulman, Hess), France (seeded 10th, Vachier-Lagrave, Fressinet, Tkachiev, Edouard, Feller), 16/22

11-19. Poland (seeded 15th), Azerbaijan (seeded 7th), Russia 3 (seeded 14th), Belarus (seeded 35th), Netherlands (seeded 13th), Slovakia (seeded 22nd), Brazil (seeded 24th), India (seeded 19th), Denmark (seeded 44th), 15/22

149 teams participating

Time control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game with a 30-second increment every move starting move one.

Individual Medalists:

Board 1
1. GM Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 8/10, performance 2890
2. GM Levon Aronian ARM 7.5/10, perf 2888
3. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi RUS2 6.5/9, perf 2821

Board 2
1. GM Emil Sutovsky ISR 6.5/8, perf 2895
2. GM Zoltan Almasi HUN 7/10, perf 2801
3. GM Wang Hao CHN 7.5/10, perf 2783

Board 3
1. GM Vitaly Teterev BLR 7/8, perf 2853
2. GM Pavel Eljanov UKR 7/10 perf 2737
3. GM Sergei Rublevsky RUS3 8/11, perf 2727

Board 4
1. GM Sergey Karjakin RUS1 8/10, perf 2857
2. GM Zahar Efimenko YKR 8.5/11, perf 2783
3. GM Anish Giri (NED) 2730, 8/11, perf 2730

Board 5
1. GM Sebastien Feller FRA 6/9, perf 2708
2. GM Mateusz Bartel POL 7/9, perf 2706
3. GM Vlastimil Babula (CZE) 7/9, perf 2668

Ukraine won the 2010 Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad led by the prolific point-making of its team leader, Vassily Ivanchuk and board 4 Zahar Efimenko. The only other time it has won the Olympiad was in 2004 Calvia with a team composed of Vassily Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Andrei Volokitin, Alexander Moiseenko, Pavel Eljanov and Sergey Karjakin.

Ivanchuk is the consummate team player -- he is always available to play for his country. He has played twice (1988 and 1990) for the Soviet Union team before the breakup, and 10 times (unbroken) for Ukraine (nine times on top board) from 1992-2010. Neither does he screen opponents -- no matter how high or low the rating of the opponent Chuckie shows up to do battle.

He also played several outstanding games. For now I will show you this one.

Ivanchuk, Vassily (2754) -- Jobava, Baadur (2710) [B12]
39th Olympiad Men Khanty-Mansiysk RUS (7.1), 28.09.2010
REQUIRES JAVA





The other heavy-hitter for the Ukrainians is GM Zahar Efimenko, a former youth standout (he is now 25) whose rating is steadily going up. Mukachevo recently sponsored high-profile training matches for him against Nigel Short and former German Champion Arkadiy Naiditsch which he both lost 2.5-3.5.

Efimenko, Zahar (2683) -- Stojanovic, Dalibor (2496) [C77]
39th Olympiad Men Khanty-Mansiysk RUS (5.5), 25.09.2010
REQUIRES JAVA





For a tournament run on match-points the likelihood of many teams sharing the same spotlight is to use total game points. Here is Khanty-Mansiysk there was a new tie-break rule the logic of which I have difficulty understanding:

If "Tiebreak 1" (match points) is equal, then "tiebreak 2" will decide. Tiebreak 2 is the match points of your opponents multiplied with the result versus them (i.e. opponent A has 10 match points and the match was a 2-2, then it is 10 * 2 = 20). Additionally the weakest result of a team getting deleted.

Did you understand that? I am a bit of a cynic, but it is my belief that this rule was instituted to make computations for tie-break results almost impossible to ascertain before the games start, and this discourages collusion.

Reader comments/suggestions are solicited. E-mail address is bangcpa@gmail.com