Beyond FICS
What can a patzer like myself say about this big event that you
couldn't already find on websites such as:
35th Chess Olympiad
or
The Week In Chess Magazine
?
First, let me start with a question:
Who was the oldest member of
the Hungarian mens team? (answer at the bottom)
That Russia, with a team consisting of: Kasparov (2838), Morozovich
(2707), Grishuk (2702), Khalifman (2690), Svidler (2690) and
Rublevsky (2664), was going to win should surprise nobody. Everybody
expected this team to run away from the rest of the field from the
very start of the tourney, and to keep that gap between them and
the rest of the field until the end of the Olympiad.
But this didn't happen... Why? Well, Morozovich and Svidler didn't
bring their best form to the tourney. They surprisingly lost to
players rated 100 points below them. It was even thanks to
Svidler's loss against Hungary that they suffered their only
defeat in this olympiad, against Hungary.
The rest of the teams also noticed this but didn't take advantage
of it. Instead the closest contender for the title, Hungary,
didn't even try. In the 13th of 14 rounds, they even made a
teamdraw agreement with Armenia to secure their hold on second
place. Other than that, the games of that round were properly
started.
This naturally caused much contention among those in the chessworld.
Amateurs called it an act of cowardice, an act that put chess in a
negative light. Amateurs all over the world were asked to unite
and come up with an idea to prevent such a blemish for chess ever
again. "Fighting spirit" is what we want to see!
Of course, we amateurs can yell all what we want. Maybe if we were
in the shoes of the Hungarians we would have done the same. Do not
forget that the players already had played 12 rounds...fatigue and
stress were surely kicking in.
Regardless, I think we all agree that such teamdraw agreements are a
bad thing. But if you really think about it, take all factors into
account, in other words to put yourself in the shoes of the
Hungarians, could you honestly say you wouldn't have done the same?
Anyway, enough about that. Since FICS is an Americain chess server,
lets say something about the Americain team. Yes, they were also
present at the Olympiad!
However, the US mens team didn't do well this year. They just
couldn't bring a good follow-up of previous years successes. At no
moment during this olympiad could the United States team even
pretend they were in the run for a medal.
What was the reason for this? We don't know, we can only speculate.
And in doing so, we can certainly all point out two things:
1) The US team is old. All the players representing America were
between 40 and 50 years of age (some might even be older then 50).
In other words, it's time that this team find some new blood - some
new young players. Of course, you can't assume that those new
young players will immediately take the US team back to those
glorious old days. But, give them some time, and who knows...
2) There aren't so many strong tournaments anymore in the US. So
how can the players representing the team have adequate training
against strong opposition? Yes, they can go abroad, but who is
going to pay for that?
Here are the final standings:
1. Russia 38.5
2. Hungary 37.5
3. Armenia 35.0
4. Georgia 34.0
5. China 33.5
...
41. United States 30.5
(for more information, please visit:
Official 35th Olympiad Site
)
Answer to the question: Judit Polgar
Why do humans engage in team play? First of all, humans like to
interact. Second, what makes team play interesting is that the
performance of a team as a whole is unique and very different from
the performance of the individual players that make up the team.
It makes sense to play football in a team, because the team element
adds to the game (playing football one-on-one is rather a boring
affair), allowing cooperation between team members and creating
situations unique to team play, such as two players sandwiching an
opponent.
Playing chess in a team, as we know it, is rather silly. Each
individual player from a team simply engages in a match against a
member of the other team. This type of team chess is best referred
to as serial chess. The team element doesn’t add much to the games,
except at the level of suspense. An individual player has no
influence on the games that are played by other team members.
In serial team chess, it is quite possible for an individual player
to loose a game and still win the team match. How absurd.
Of course, playing chess in a team is not necessarily a silly
affair. A match between two chess teams can also consist of a
single game, in which members of the same team are allowed to
interact during the game. Parallel team chess makes sense! Those of
us who have engaged in this form of team chess know that it can be
exciting and a lot of fun. (Type “help team” at FICS to get more
info about team chess and how to create a team account on the
server.) It’s a bit like raising a child. You can be proud of the
outcome of the enterprise, since you know that your efforts are
partially responsible for it, while you can always blame other
people who were involved in case things went wrong.
This said, serial team chess turns out to be by far the most
popular form of team chess. At the 35th Chess Olympiad, teams from
over a hundred countries engaged in serial team chess. The women’s
tournament featured an interesting battle for gold that was decided
only during the final round. China and Russia each won their final
games 2.5-0.5. China therefore retained their title, while Russia
finished second. Number two seed Georgia led by as much as 3.5
points after ten rounds, when they were beaten 2.5-0.5 by Poland,
which ended up claiming the bronze medal.
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