An early post, as we had a very early finish.
As predicted my opponent from Rwanda did not turn up. However it turned out that no one from Rwanda managed to turn up and so it looked like we would receive a 4-0 walkover. Actually we weren't that happy about this prospect and when we became aware of Rwanda's impending no-show (at around 10:30 last night) we attempted to have ourselves repaired with Madagascar, who were due to receive the bye. (*NB There have been no byes in the event so far but for some reason Turkmenistan left after round 10, creating one).
The problem with this plan was that no one could find Madagascar, and as they knew they were getting the bye, were not even expected to turn up at the venue this morning. So come 10 am (the early start didn't help) we faced 4 empty boards and after about 15 minutes of mucking about by arbiters the scoresheets were signed and the result recorded.
It would have nice to have played one last game (especially as this years event is a ridiculously short 11 rounds), although it does mean that Craig Skehan has scored his first full point in any Olympiad game ("The two sweetest words in the English language. De Fault" Homer Simpson). Of course it still doesn't count as a win over the board, but I'm sure he is going to have the scoresheet framed anyway.
British Virgin Islands also picked up 4 points the same way although their opponents arrived about 10 minutes after the scheduled start time. IVB were actually quite happy to play, and in this case the arbiters had not recorded defaults for them, but when they tried to begin the match, the arbiters finally stepped in and awarded the points to IVB. This was harsh on both Malawi and IVB as the legendary Bill Hook ended up without an opponent in 4 of his 11 rounds.
The other big blow-up was in the Gabon v US Virgin Islands match where the Gabon team (of only 3 players) were at the board at the scheduled starting time (10:00 am) and even shook hands with their opponents. However there was a delay to the start (probably no more than a minute) and their Board 1 had to answer an urgent call of nature. While he was gone, the round started and he was defaulted. His team mates protested strongly and when he returned he exclaimed "Which SOB did this?". Despite their protests the result stood and as a consequence the rest of the team stood up and walked out.
So are 3 4-0 defaults in the Open section (along with Tkachiev going missing for France in their Board 6 match!), a good advertisement for chess, or simple proof that bad rules have bad consequences?
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6 comments:
Shaun, your final round game against lex Ruzigura is not showing up on the official Olympiad site, except for 1. e4
Could you please put up the pgn so I can add it to the chess viewer on OzChess?
Thanks,
Alex
ps- The tag says you won :)
I predicted a fate identical to Gabon's Board 1 in your match. But I didn't expect that it would actually happen in the Olympiad, with the best arbitership in the world. I thought it would happen under an idiot with no common sense, in some remote place.
That one surely brought the administration of Chess into disrepute.
Jonathan Berry
Alex Toolsie aka Alexander Vincent Toolsie, this is still more evidence (as if the point was not already proven many times over) of your embarrassing lack of any kind of attention span or quality control over your public output.
Clearly from Shaun's post he won on forfeit as the whole Rwanda team failed to appear on time (this is confirmed by the official site), and therefore there are no more moves to post.
Then the pgn should have been 1. e4 (Black forfeits), and not simply 1. e4
But thanks for the clarification Kevin.
However, it should be noted that contrary to your assertion I had not read Shaun's report before I commented. As you can see I came straight from the official results page. But once again, thank you for revealing that detail.
Best Regards,
Alex Toolsie
Well Alex, in that case, perhaps you should actually read the post you are commenting before commenting on it; who knows, you might learn something! My point about lack of quality control therefore stands - and the one about attention span could be argued to as well. :)
You say "As you can see I came straight from the official results page." Well, no, I can't see any evidence of that in your comments at all. You refer to the official site but that reference hardly proves you went straight from there to here.
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