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Date: 25 Nov 2008 11:06:45
From: samsloan
Subject: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
Going into the last round of the World Chess Olympiad, the chances of
the US Team for any kind of medal were somewhere between slim and
none, as they faced the world-class team of the Mighty Ukraine.

On every board, the USA team was outrated by an average of 60 rating
points. This made the chances that the USA team might even be able to
draw the match to be approximately nil.

Amazingly, the USA Team wiped out the Ukraine by 3 1/2 - 1/2, with
Kamsky beating Ivanchuk on board one.

This will have to go down as one of the greatest upsets in Olympiad
history, As a result, the US Team finished in third place and won the
bronze medal, even though they had started the Olympiad ranked only
tenth. Armenia won, with Israel finishing second.

Round 11 on 2008/11/25 at 10:00
Bo. 10 USA United States of America (USA) Rtg - 2 UKR Ukraine (UKR)
Rtg 3=BD: =BD
3.1 GM Kamsky Gata 2729 - GM Ivanchuk Vassily 2786 1 - 0
3.2 GM Nakamura Hikaru 2704 - GM Karjakin Sergey 2730 =BD - =BD
3.3 GM Onischuk Alexander 2644 - GM Eljanov Pavel 2720 1 - 0
3.4 GM Shulman Yuri 2616 - GM Efimenko Zahar 2680 1 - 0

Not to be sneezed at was the result of the US Woman's team, who was
not given much of a chance as they started the event ranked only
seventh. However, the US women beat Russia and drew with China to
finish third in the Olympiad behind Georgia and the Ukraine.

This great result by the US Women was made possible because of Anna
Zatonskih who won the silver medal with a score of 8-2 with a
performance rating of 2571, more than one hundred points above her
published rating of 2440 and especially because of Rusudan Goletiani
who performed nearly two hundred points above her rating, scoring 9-2
with a performance of 2542, whereas her published rating is only 2359.

Among individual players, most notable was former Woman's World
Champion Maya Chiburdanidze, who returned to her prior form after
years of mediocre results and scored 7 1/2 - 1 1/2, beating both
Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan and The Real Woman's World Champion
Alexandra Kosteniuk to achieve a performance rating of 2715.

Even more spectacular was the result of beauty queen Martha Fierro of
Ecuador who scored an amazing 7 1/2 - 1/2 to achieve a performance
rating of 2613, one of the best results ever in history for a woman.

This was the second amazing result for Martha Fierro just within the
last few weeks. Just before the Olympiad, she and her partner won the
gold medal in mixed blitz doubles at the World Mind Sport Games in
Beijing, China. Nobody would have imagined that a team from lowly
Ecuador would win an event like that, but they did, IM Martha Fierro
and GM Franco Matamoros achieved historic success by winning this
event, defeating powerful teams from China, India and other countries.

Sam Sloan




 
Date: 29 Nov 2008 00:48:40
From: EJAY
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
On Nov 28, 10:17=A0pm, "thumbody.." <[email protected] > wrote:
> EJAY wrote:
>
> > On Nov 26, 7:47 am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Nov 25, 2:06 pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > The Real Woman's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
>
>> I can't answer this;http://www.chessinchina.net/html/accoona07.jpg..
-
Saw the Match in NY between Krush and Zhu Chen in NYC a few years
ago.I think Chen won the Match. Krush beat Kosteniuk at the
Olympiad !! Zhu Chen did marry a GM from Qatar.Perhaps she was /is
pregnant.



 
Date: 29 Nov 2008 14:28:29
From: thumbody..
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
thumbody.. wrote:
>
> EJAY wrote:
> >
> > On Nov 26, 7:47 am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Nov 25, 2:06 pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > > The Real Woman's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
> > >
> > > as opposed to the Fake World Champion.Who is the "Fake Champ"? And who argues that Kosteniuk is not the real champ?
>
> It's not a bad question Ejay..
>
> Yesterday, I myself quickly accquainted ( via gog.) imagery of the
> contemporary crop of top-level female gm's - & there are some stunners:
>
> - http://www.ez-net.com/~mephisto/Images/Alexandra%20Kosteniuk.jpg ...is
> I think generally acknowledged as the reigning queen..
>
> As one might imagine there are some extremely attractive thrusters who
> occasionally run away with their success @ the hallowed game &
> spruik boastfully their prowess..
>
> I've no idea who the "fake champ" alluded to is..
>
> > >What happened to Zhu Chen I did not notice her participation in the Olympiad. I am assuming she would have represented Qatar.Did she change her name perhaps?
>
> I can't answer this; http://www.chessinchina.net/html/accoona07.jpg..
>
> Em, maybe she's preggers or ate some bad noodles or something. Why on
> earth would she change her name or represent Qatar?..
>
> t.
>
> > >
> > EJAY


 
Date: 29 Nov 2008 14:17:37
From: thumbody..
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
EJAY wrote:
>
> On Nov 26, 7:47 am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Nov 25, 2:06 pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > The Real Woman's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
> >
> > as opposed to the Fake World Champion.Who is the "Fake Champ"? And who argues that Kosteniuk is not the real champ?

It's not a bad question Ejay..

Yesterday, I myself quickly accquainted ( via gog.) imagery of the
contemporary crop of top-level female gm's - & there are some stunners:

- http://www.ez-net.com/~mephisto/Images/Alexandra%20Kosteniuk.jpg ...is
I think generally acknowledged as the reigning queen..

As one might imagine there are some extremely attractive thrusters who
might occasionally run away with their success @ the hallowed game &
spruik boastfully their prowess..

I've no idea who the "fake champ" alluded to is..

> >What happened to Zhu Chen I did not notice her participation in the Olympiad. I am assuming she would have represented Qatar.Did she change her name perhaps?

I can't answer this; http://www.chessinchina.net/html/accoona07.jpg..

Em, maybe she's preggers or ate some bad noodles or something. Why on
earth would she change her name or represent Qatar?..

t.


> >
> EJAY


 
Date: 28 Nov 2008 02:45:02
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
On Nov 28, 4:58=A0am, EJAY <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Nov 26, 7:47=A0am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:> On Nov 25, 2=
:06=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
>
> > > The Real Woman's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
>
> > as opposed to the Fake World Champion.Who is the "Fake Champ"? And who =
argues that Kosteniuk is not the real champ? What happened to Zhu Chen I di=
d not notice her participation in the Olympiad. I am assuming she would hav=
e represented Qatar.Did she change her name perhaps?
>
> EJAY

If you spend much time reading Susan Polgar's websites, you will see
that she often is referred to as "The World Champion" or as "World
Champion Susan Polgar".

Occasionally, she qualifies it by saying "Woman's World Champion".

I assume that she is contending that when FIDE stripped her in 1999
for refusing to defend her title, that it acted illegally and
therefore she is still the world champion, in much the same way that
Bobby Fischer claimed that he was the world champion until he died
earlier this year.

Sam Sloan


 
Date: 28 Nov 2008 01:58:22
From: EJAY
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
On Nov 26, 7:47=A0am, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Nov 25, 2:06=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > The Real Woman's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
>
> as opposed to the Fake World Champion.Who is the "Fake Champ"? And who ar=
gues that Kosteniuk is not the real champ? What happened to Zhu Chen I did =
not notice her participation in the Olympiad. I am assuming she would have =
represented Qatar.Did she change her name perhaps?
>
EJAY



 
Date: 26 Nov 2008 06:40:39
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
On Nov 26, 8:21=A0am, Jerzy <[email protected] > wrote:
> On 26 Lis, 11:59, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Right. I had overlooked her. At age 20, she also had an amazing
> > result, with a performance rating on 2621 !!!
>
> > It was primarily because of her that Poland had such an impressive
> > result.Poland usually does not do that well.
>
> Well, Polish women`s team was not so long ago the European Chess
> Champion and scored in the past two bronze medals in the history of
> Olympic Games. Of course, they are young and the future is theirs :)

I have attended several of these Olympiads and I do not recall the
Polish Woman's Team ever finishing so well.

However, this year they were among the leaders. In fact, had Poland
won in the last round she would have finished first in the Olympiad.
Instead, she lost to The Ukraine, by 2 1/2 - 1 1/2.

Thus, one game was the difference between first and fifth.

This illustrates a flaw in the system. I like the old system better.

In round 9, Poland beat the USA by 3-1, the worst loss suffered by any
US Team. However, the USA won the next two matches and finished third
whereas Poland had to face stronger opposition and finished fifth.

Sam Sloan



 
Date: 26 Nov 2008 05:21:59
From: Jerzy
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
On 26 Lis, 11:59, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:

> Right. I had overlooked her. At age 20, she also had an amazing
> result, with a performance rating on 2621 !!!
>
> It was primarily because of her that Poland had such an impressive
> result.Poland usually does not do that well.
>

Well, Polish women`s team was not so long ago the European Chess
Champion and scored in the past two bronze medals in the history of
Olympic Games. Of course, they are young and the future is theirs :)


 
Date: 26 Nov 2008 04:47:38
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
On Nov 25, 2:06=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:

> The Real Woman's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk

Nobody seems to have noticed that I mentioned "The Real Woman's World
Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk", as opposed to the Fake World Champion.

Sam Sloan




 
Date: 26 Nov 2008 02:59:15
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
On Nov 26, 2:32=A0am, Jerzy <[email protected] > wrote:
> On 25 Lis, 20:06, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Going into the last round of the World Chess Olympiad, the chances of
> > Among individual players, most notable was former Woman's World
> > Champion Maya Chiburdanidze, who returned to her prior form after
> > years of mediocre results and scored 7 1/2 - 1 1/2, beating both
> > Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan and The Real Woman's World Champion
> > Alexandra Kosteniuk to achieve a performance rating of 2715.
>
> > Even more spectacular was the result of beauty queen Martha Fierro of
> > Ecuador who scored an amazing 7 1/2 - 1/2 to achieve a performance
> > rating of 2613, one of the best results ever in history for a woman.
>
> Well, AFAIK young Joanna Majdan from Poland achieved an amazing score
> 9.5 out of 11 gaining 66 ELO points to her rating :)

Right. I had overlooked her. At age 20, she also had an amazing
result, with a performance rating on 2621 !!!

It was primarily because of her that Poland had such an impressive
result.Poland usually does not do that well.

Majdan Joanna WIM 2284 POL Rp:2621
Rd. SNo Name Rtg FED Rp Pts. Res. Bo.
1 273 Newrkla Katharina 2071 AUT 1982 1,5 s 1 4
2 140 WGM Hoang Thi Bao Tram 2250 VIE 2170 4,0 s 1 3
3 307 WIM Mendoza Velazquez Lorena Aleja 2015 MEX 1916 6,0 w 1 3
4 90 WGM Benderac Ana 2310 SRB 0 1,0 w 1 4
5 26 WGM Shen Yang 2450 CHN 2435 6,0 w 0 3
6 30 IM Lomineishvili Maia 2437 GEO 2432 6,0 w 1 4
7 35 WGM Pogonina Natalija 2474 RUS 2489 6,0 w =BD 4
8 84 WGM Rudolf Anna 2318 HUN 2306 5,0 s 1 4
9 71 WGM Rohonyan Katerina 2334 USA 2342 6,0 s 1 4
10 95 WIM Galojan Lilit 2305 ARM 2359 6,5 w 1 4
11 17 IM Gaponenko Inna 2473 UKR 2339 5,0 s 1 4

Sam Sloan


 
Date: 25 Nov 2008 12:51:01
From:
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
So the Armenian Ex-Soviet grandmasters were slight better than the
Israeli Ex-Soviet grandmasters and the US Ex-Soviet grandmasters.


 
Date: 25 Nov 2008 19:12:43
From: B. Lafferty
Subject: Re: Amazing Victory by US in World Chess Olympiad
I'd say thing are looking better for Kamsky in February.

samsloan wrote:
> Going into the last round of the World Chess Olympiad, the chances of
> the US Team for any kind of medal were somewhere between slim and
> none, as they faced the world-class team of the Mighty Ukraine.
>
> On every board, the USA team was outrated by an average of 60 rating
> points. This made the chances that the USA team might even be able to
> draw the match to be approximately nil.
>
> Amazingly, the USA Team wiped out the Ukraine by 3 1/2 - 1/2, with
> Kamsky beating Ivanchuk on board one.
>
> This will have to go down as one of the greatest upsets in Olympiad
> history, As a result, the US Team finished in third place and won the
> bronze medal, even though they had started the Olympiad ranked only
> tenth. Armenia won, with Israel finishing second.
>
> Round 11 on 2008/11/25 at 10:00
> Bo. 10 USA United States of America (USA) Rtg - 2 UKR Ukraine (UKR)
> Rtg 3�: �
> 3.1 GM Kamsky Gata 2729 - GM Ivanchuk Vassily 2786 1 - 0
> 3.2 GM Nakamura Hikaru 2704 - GM Karjakin Sergey 2730 � - �
> 3.3 GM Onischuk Alexander 2644 - GM Eljanov Pavel 2720 1 - 0
> 3.4 GM Shulman Yuri 2616 - GM Efimenko Zahar 2680 1 - 0
>
> Not to be sneezed at was the result of the US Woman's team, who was
> not given much of a chance as they started the event ranked only
> seventh. However, the US women beat Russia and drew with China to
> finish third in the Olympiad behind Georgia and the Ukraine.
>
> This great result by the US Women was made possible because of Anna
> Zatonskih who won the silver medal with a score of 8-2 with a
> performance rating of 2571, more than one hundred points above her
> published rating of 2440 and especially because of Rusudan Goletiani
> who performed nearly two hundred points above her rating, scoring 9-2
> with a performance of 2542, whereas her published rating is only 2359.
>
> Among individual players, most notable was former Woman's World
> Champion Maya Chiburdanidze, who returned to her prior form after
> years of mediocre results and scored 7 1/2 - 1 1/2, beating both
> Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan and The Real Woman's World Champion
> Alexandra Kosteniuk to achieve a performance rating of 2715.
>
> Even more spectacular was the result of beauty queen Martha Fierro of
> Ecuador who scored an amazing 7 1/2 - 1/2 to achieve a performance
> rating of 2613, one of the best results ever in history for a woman.
>
> This was the second amazing result for Martha Fierro just within the
> last few weeks. Just before the Olympiad, she and her partner won the
> gold medal in mixed blitz doubles at the World Mind Sport Games in
> Beijing, China. Nobody would have imagined that a team from lowly
> Ecuador would win an event like that, but they did, IM Martha Fierro
> and GM Franco Matamoros achieved historic success by winning this
> event, defeating powerful teams from China, India and other countries.
>
> Sam Sloan