The second round of the 2018 Olympiad was actually quite a good one for the Papua New Guinea team. Usually it takes 3 or 4 rounds before we look like picking up a match win, but a narrow 1.5-2.5 loss to Liechtenstein was a pretty good outcome.
The credit for this has to go to team captain GM Elshan Moradiabadi, who provided excellent opening preparation for the team. We all got positions on the board that we expected, and for a couple of us this was translated into a result.
Stuart Fancy won a nice attacking game on Board 1, while Rupert Jones had a 'gentlemens' draw on board 4 (against former FIDE Treasurer Willy Iclicki). I failed to grovel a draw in an ending where I was being squeezed, but a number of people pointed out I probably could have saved it at the end. Helmut Marko had a good position out of the opening, but he dropped a pawn and could not save the game.
In round 3 we are playing Ghana, although my own game is already finished. After winning a pawn in the opening I played the rest of the game poorly and lost. Curiously my opponent who is running a version of Street Chess in Ghana, and he even wore a shirt with 'Street Chess Champ' printed on the front!
At the moment we are down 2 games, but look better in the other 2. The best result is a 2-2, while I don't believe we will do worse the 1-3.
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