Daily report by GM Alexander Baburin from Turkey
Day Four, 31st October 2000. After
4 rounds at the men's Olympiad Germany and Israel are in the lead. Germans beat
Hungary 3-1, winning on boards 3 and 4 (Lutz-Polgar 1-0; Portisch-Luther 0-1).
Israel beat Cuba with the same score. Russia managed the same result against
France although it looked that the score could be even higher as Khalifman
failed to convert his considerable advantage. In the match Netherlands-England
all games were drawn. Tomorrow Germany will play Israel, while Russia meats with
Brazil. Although the Brazilians will be the underdogs in this match, this young
team is capable of delivering surprises, as earlier they crashed a strong team
from Slovakia. In the women's event Georgia beat Russia 2¸-¸, which is a great
result for the Georgian team.
Both Irish teams had a pretty miserable day: our
ladies lost ¸-2¸ to New Zealand, while our men's team lost ¸-3¸ to
Yugoslavia. After drawing with Byelorussia we hoped to get a good result in this
match too, but it was not to be. I drew against GM Damljanovic in a game where I
was under some pressure at some point. In the end my opponent made a serious
error, but unfortunately I immediately returned the favour...
Tomorrow we will play against our neighbours -
Wales, while our women's team will meet with Morocco.
 The
Irish Women's Team (Photo courtesy Mark Orr.)
Today I received the first two bulletins for the
Olympiad. Though they were much delayed, I was not impressed with the output:
there are no photos in them and mistakes are numerous. For example, consider the
following game:
 1
e4 e5 2 b4! White obviously wants
to gain time after 2...Bxb4?? 3 c3, but Black is alert and comes with a
brilliant counter-attack:
2...a5!! 3 c3 Seeing that White is
stubborn and just won't make any concessions on the queenside, Black decides to
attack on the other wing:
3...h5!? This
is an interesting idea, but should Black have foreseen White's reply, he
probably would have second thoughts about playing this aggressively. White
called his bluff:
4 g4!! (See diagram at right.)
White eventually won in this game, which showed
how gambits should be played. Alas, the rest of this wonderful encounter is
missing. I assume that Black did not resign on move 4, although, being in his
shoes, I might have done just that! Do not blame the players (White is a GM!) -
this entertaining game was produced courtesy of those wonderful electronic
boards. To please them we must not adjust pieces before the game and for them we
have to restart our games occasionally. Looking at the example above, I am
terrified even to think what kind of game they will produce, should somebody
touch his or her pieces before the game starts! :-) These boards are bringing
some fresh ideas in the opening. For example: 1 c4 e5 2 Nc3 d5!! 3 Nxd5 Nf6 4
Nxf6+, but despite Black's innovative play, she lost. But who said that chess
should be fair?! By the way, if you try any of these ideas in your local club
and they do not work, don't even think of suing me. I had little to do with this
report - it was written by an electronic board connected to my PC!
More to follow tomorrow - stay tuned!
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