|
Events |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
13/09/2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad 2024 Round 3
Perusal of chess_results.com showed that the result given for Papua New Guinea’s board 1 in the live broadcast was, as suspected, wrong. However, it endorsed the weird 5-move loss on board 2. (Yesterday’s report now updated accordingly.)
The round-3 pairings, as should be the case at this stage in a Swiss pairing system, threw up a further narrowing of the gap in strength between paired teams.
The England Open team, having won 3½‑½ in round 1, then 3-1 in round 2, might well have to be happy with a 2½‑1½ win in round 3. Worse than that would be disappointing. For this round, Gawain Jones was introduced to the line-up, with Michael Adams, the (relatively) “old man” of the England squad taking a rest. Adams had been on board three, but Jones came in at board 4, allowing him the “warm up” more comfortably, and allowing McShane, who was the only squad member on 2 out of 2, to rise to board 3. This all seems sensible captaincy on the part of William Watson.
The England Women’s team, wherein Houska had stepped down in favour of Lao on board 1 in round 2, now retained both those two while Sivanandan was rested. The four playing in round 3 were all on 100%, was another win looked very likely.
The Papua New Guinea team in the Open section was now in with a chance of drawing, or with a fair wind even winning, though they were still slightly outrated by Guernsey, despite the massive disparity in land area and population. Papua New Guinea has a land area of about 176,770 square miles as compared with Gurnsey’s 24 square miles. PNG has a population of uncertain size, held by its authorities to be about 10 million (mainly non-urbanised) but estimated by Southampton University to be more like 17 million. Guernsey has a population of about 64,000. Chess sets per capita is probably a better measure of chess-playing strength.
In the event, England Open team did not manage to find a win on any board and drew 2-2.
England Women, on the other hand, returned to their first-round form (squashing everything in sight) and turned in another 4-0 match score. In board 4, Katarzyna Toma played a particularly lively game, ignoring minor considerations like losing pieces, delivering mate in 36 moves. Jovanka Houska’s opponent made an unfortunate sequence of two moves which unnecessarily engineered a mating bishop sacrifice for Houska.
Papua New Guinea’s fortunes turned for the better, and they beat Guernsey 2½‑1½ with wins on the top two boards.
Results:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||