It seems that people really believed in Russia this time around. Well, they should have won, but didn’t. Armenia has won three of the last four and Ukraine two of the last five. Russia last won in 2002 with Kasparov on the team.
At the closing ceremony the organisers did not present the Armenian flag (I think it was the Colombian in stead?!), just as they were insensitive to the winners in a few other ways. There is an old conflict between the two contries that sadly not only lingers with the victims. One Armenian said about the flag incident that ‘it was not the worst thing that had happened to Armenians in Turkey…’
Worse is of course that Armenia will not play in 2016 in Azerbaijan. At least this is my prediction.
My first day of retirement has passed. If this is anything to go by, I am going to be busy! Getting awards, talking to world champions, business meetings and presentations – and not the least analysing the Slav defence until 2am in the morning! All of this without the pressure of playing and the feeling that I should want to win/prepare, knowing that I care about the results, but do not have the hunger to play for them myself anymore…
Meanwhile I am trying for the first time to embed a video. I have no idea if it works…
Judit came up to me at lunch and expressed her regret that we were not playing. However, it was not possible, if Lars had played, I was ripe for a rest. However, I look forward to a tough game with Almasi this afternoon.
One of my favourite sites on the net is www.chesscafe.com, where you can get interesting articles and reviews of a high quality. About a year ago they changed their review system from five to four stars, without making it obvious for people like myself who suffer from mouse-clicking-too-fast syndrom. A number of 4/4 reviews were frustrating, not only because people believed it was 4/5, but also because there were books where the reviewer did not rate the books equally, but still they all got 4/4 (or quite close).
So I suggested Mark that they changed their rating system again to 6 stars and marked them as filled or not, so it was easy to understand and with some range. To be honest I stole the idea from the Danish newspapers, mainly Politiken. It has worked really well since, despite my 4/4 for my books were nicer than 5/6 I got since (what the fuck!).
I have to say that the pleasure of 6/6 beats 4/4 together with books you really do not respect quite a bit, even if there is a difference of taste and opinion you can use as a shield for your feelings. And when other companies get 6/6 for their books, I immediately get them from the London Chess Centre!
Marie and I did not play for Denmark yesterday due to human error. Her captain had forgotten to put in the changes in the team and they played one to four. My captain did not select me.
The signing was great; Avrukh signed 100s of books and over 10 authors showed up. The Turkish Federation were very happy. Here are a few photos.
The Danish team is really not performing well. We won the match today 2.5-1.5 against Algeria, but we were hoping for 4-0!
First Sune played an automatic move, not hesitating at all, to see that he had to prevent …b6-b5, even though he had prepared this! A quick draw was disappointing…
Then Lars blundered in a poor position, losing a pawn and just getting ground down by a 2200 guy.
Then Jakob blundered, but luckily the damage was sort of minor and he found practical ideas and was quickly better and won.
I won.
Nikos is attending a trainers’ seminar here, where he mentioned that he now works for us, which apparently impressed one of the lectures. We got this endorsement from him:
“I do not think that Quality Chess has published a bad book!” – GM Jayson Gonzales
Gonzales told us that he has all of the GM Repertoire books. He bought the first volume in 2008 a few hours before the final round game against Argentina in the Dresden Olympiad, where the Philippines were facing their worst placement ever, in the case of a defeat. The game, inspired by the book, made all the difference in their 2.5-1.5 victory; and in the end the Philippines came 46th and saved face.
Recent Comments