2008 Chess Olympiad

The grass is cut and the leaves are duly chopped up into bits - at least on the front lawn :) It was actually tolerable outdoors today, dressed with turtleneck, sweatshirt, winter jacket, globes, scarf and hat on - jeans too (I was not naked from the waist down, darlings). It took forever to chop up the leaves, and the tree on the next store neighbor's lot kept dropping more leaves on to my newly cleared grass with every little puff of breeze; I swear it was baiting me :) It took forever! Back and forth, back and forth...but at last, it was done. I got my work-out for the day, and I was pooped! The backyard is a mess - hopefully the day after Thanksgiving will be temperate enough to pull out the lawn mower and give it a last going-over for the season. We'll see. Here are the current Women's Olympiad standings after R10: Rk. SNo Team Team Games + = - TB1 TB2 TB3 TB4 1 9 Poland POL 10 8 1 1 17 302,0 125,0 26,0 2 2 Ukraine UKR 10 6 4 0 16 343,0 122,0 27,5 3 4 Georgia GEO 10 7 2 1 16 330,5 121,0 28,0 4 10 Serbia SRB 10 7 2 1 16 277,5 119,0 25,5 5 7 United States of America USA 10 7 1 2 15 321,0 119,0 28,0 6 1 Russia RUS 10 6 3 1 15 298,0 121,0 27,0 7 3 China CHN 10 6 2 14 328,0 133,0 25,5 8 6 Armenia ARM 10 7 0 3 14 288,5 122,0 25,5 9 5 France FRA 10 6 2 2 14 275,0 108,0 28,0 10 11 India IND 10 6 2 2 14 274,5 120,0 23,5 11 16 Romania ROU 10 7 0 3 14 251,0 118,0 24,5 12 17 Netherlands NED 10 7 0 3 14 246,0 118,0 22,5 13 8 Hungary HUN 10 6 1 3 13 268,5 122,0 24,5 14 19 Greece GRE 10 6 1 3 13 260,0 99,0 28,0 15 26 Belarus BLR 10 5 3 2 13 252,0 99,0 26,5 16 47 Mongolia MGL 10 6 1 3 13 247,5 114,0 21,5 17 21 Israel ISR 10 5 3 2 13 239,0 111,0 23,5 18 13 Bulgaria BUL 10 6 1 3 13 235,0 105,0 24,5 19 29 Argentina ARG 10 6 1 3 13 222,0 99,0 26,0 20 33 Italy ITA 10 5 3 2 13 220,5 105,0 24,0 21 43 Uzbekistan UZB 10 6 1 3 13 217,5 113,0 22,0 If I'm reading this correctly, USA and Russia each have 15 points, #1 Poland has 17 points; Ukraine, Georgia and Serbia each have 16 points. Tomorrow USA plays France, which is in 9th place with 14 points. Any odds-makers out there figuring out who could possibly win? Here are the top match-ups for the Women for the final round tomorrow: 1 9 POL Poland 26 17 : 16 27½ Ukraine UKR 2 2 12 GER1 Germany 1 21½ 12 : 12 25½ Sweden SWE 20 3 4 GEO Georgia 28 16 : 16 25½ Serbia SRB 10 4 7 USA United States of America 28 15 : 14 28 France FRA 5 5 17 NED Netherlands 22½ 14 : 15 27 Russia RUS 1 6 16 ROU Romania 24½ 14 : 14 25½ China CHN 3 7 11 IND India 23½ 14 : 14 25½ Armenia ARM 6 8 8 HUN Hungary 24½ 13 : 13 22 Uzbekistan UZB 43 9 33 ITA Italy 24 13 : 13 28 Greece GRE 19 10 29 ARG Argentina 26 13 : 13 26½ Belarus BLR 26 In contention for individual medals: Board 1: IM Irina Krush in 10th place, with 6.5/9. In first place after R10, is GM Maia Chiburdanidze with 6.5/8. Board 2: IM Anna Zatonskih is holding down 1st place, yippee! with 7.5/9. Board 3: WGM Rusudan Goletiana is holding down 2nd place, yippee! with 8.0/10. Here are the top women by performance rating after R10: 1 GM Chiburdanidze Maia 2489 Georgia 2697 6,5 8 81,3 1 2 IM Fierro Baquero Martha L 2361 Ecuador 2613 7,5 8 93,8 1 3 WIM Linares Napoles Oleiny 2261 Cuba 2603 8,5 9 94,4 4 4 WIM Majdan Joanna 2284 Poland 2592 8,5 10 85,0 4 5 IM Zatonskih Anna 2440 United States of America 2591 7,5 9 83,3 2 6 WGM Hou Yifan 2578 China 2588 7,0 10 70,0 1 7 IM Socko Monika 2434 Poland 2574 6,0 9 66,7 1 8 GM Cramling Pia 2550 Sweden 2569 7,5 8 93,8 1 9 IM Kosintseva Nadezhda 2468 Russia 2567 7,5 9 83,3 3 10 IM Mkrtchian Lilit 2443 Armenia 2562 7,5 10 75,0 2 11 GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 Bulgaria 2549 7,0 9 77,8 1 12 IM Dzagnidze Nana 2503 Georgia 2538 6,5 9 72,2 2 13 GM Peng Zhaoqin 2455 Netherlands 2538 6,0 9 66,7 1 14 GM Hoang Thanh Trang 2483 Hungary 2534 7,0 10 70,0 1 15 WGM Zdebskaja Natalia 2419 Ukraine 2528 7,0 8 87,5 5 16 WGM Zhukova Natalia 2488 Ukraine 2528 6,0 9 66,7 2 17 IM Moser Eva 2376 Austria 2527 7,5 9 83,3 1 18 WGM Goletiani Rusudan 2359 United States of Amer. 2513 8,0 10 0,0 3 19 IM Krush Irina 2452 United States of America 2511 6,5 9 72,2 1 20 IM Khukhashvili Sopiko 2409 Georgia 2511 5,0 6 83,3 5 Can the US Women pull off a medal in this Olympiad? My hat (well-spiced) is ready for munching, ladies... How'd the US chess duds, er, dudes do? They're in 8th place with 15th points. In 1st is Armenia with 17, in 2nd is Ukraine also with 17, and in 3rd is Israel with 16. Where's Russia? Holy crap, in 5th place with 15 points, behind 4th place China also with 15 points. Guess the Americans aren't the only super-GM duds (although to be fair, the US duds aren't super-GMs).