Sunday 8 June 2008

Papua New Guinea Olympiad Team 2008

The 2008 Papua New Guinea Olympiad Team has been selected. The team is
  • Stuart Fancy
  • Shaun Press
  • FM Rupert Jones
  • Allan Luga
  • Craig Skehan
The team captain is FM Brian Jones. Helmut Marko is the first emergency reserve, if any of the selected team are unable to attend.
Once again we will be battling away at the tail of the field (against traditional opponents such as Fiji, Bermuda, Jersey and Guernsey) although I am not sure how the format changes to the Olympiad will affect us.
In previous years the first half of the tournament saw us trying to pick up points against stronger opponents, while the second half saw us try and win a few matches. With the shift to 11 rounds, the second half is shorter (by 1 or 2 rounds), although the accelerated draw may get us to our level sooner. The change to match points (over game points) may have a bigger effect on us, as we tend to have a higher percentage score based on game points than we do on match points.
I would also like to take the opportunity to thank WFM Cathy Rogers who has served as the PNG Team captain at the previous 4 Olympiads. She is both a thorough and professional captain, and was a great assistance to the team, and me personally (especially in 2004), in those Olympiads.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All the best to the team Shaun. Run on a shoestring budget, ie SWF all of nothing, but you get there.

Just don't overdo the caffeine else you may fall foul of the drug testing and, most importantly, no short or agreed draws - you could really, really upset a lot of nobodies.