2010 Chess Olympiad - Round 1 Women

Hola!  Whew, what a day - long and stormy, and a scary walk home from the bus stop with lightning all around. Getting right to it:

As expected, the Round 1 match-ups between the top and bottom teams were, to put it politely, a joke.  Oh yeah, a few token surprises here and there, but not for the American Women!  They were matched against the Domican Republic Women's Team in R1 and took care of business:

Round 1 on 2010/09/21 at 15:00
Bo. 6 United States of America (USA) Rtg - 65 Dominican Republic (DOM) Rtg 4 : 0
6.1 IM Krush Irina 2490 - Adames Rojas Ariella 1899 1 - 0
6.2 WFM Abrahamyan Tatev 2352 - WFM Perez Eneida 2099 1 - 0
6.3 WGM Baginskaite Kamile 2328 - Jose Polanco Kenia 1997 1 - 0
6.4 WGM Foisor Sabina-Francesca 2293 - Hazim Elizabeth 1858 1 - 0

Damned if I can figure out how this scoring works, but suffice to say that USA Women has not lost any position, it is still sitting in 6th place, where it was, coming into this Olympiad.  The other teams above it (Russia 1, China, Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia2) also took their matches, and so as far as I can tell, nothing has changed regarding the standings of the top Women's Teams.  It's early days.  A team must take matches against weaker opponents wherever it can, to maintain the pace as long as possible.  As the days grind on and fatigue begins to set in, those match points will add up.  The actual win/draw/loss total will become important when it comes to tie-breaks (I think). 

How did the chess femmes who are playing on the Open Teams do (i.e., with the chess dudes)?

GM Judit Polgar, Board 3 Hungary (today she played Board 2):

Round 1 on 2010/09/21 at 15:00
Bo. 5 Hungary (HUN) Rtg - 79 Jordan (JOR) Rtg 3½: ½
5.1 GM Almasi Zoltan 2707 - IM Khader Sami 2449 1 - 0
5.2 GM Polgar Judit 2682 - FM Samhouri Ahmad Fawzi 2372 1 - 0
5.3 GM Berkes Ferenc 2678 - FM Mansour Sameer 2283 1 - 0
5.4 GM Balogh Csaba 2608 - CM Samhouri Bilal 2269 ½ - ½

GM Viktorija Cmilyte, Board 3 Lithuania (today she played Board 2):

Round 1 on 2010/09/21 at 15:00
Bo. 39 Lithuania (LTU) Rtg - 114 Netherlands Antilles (AHO) Rtg 4 : 0
39.1 GM Rozentalis Eduardas 2611 - Dekker Marvin 2097 1 - 0
39.2 GM Cmilyte Viktorija 2513 - Maduro Sherman 2009 1 - 0
39.3 GM Malisauskas Vidmantas 2510 - Izijk Jimmy 2062 1 - 0
39.4 IM Zagorskis Darius 2497 - Da Silva John 2027 1 - 0

GM Zhu Chen, Board 3 Qatar (today she played Board 2):

Round 1 on 2010/09/21 at 15:00
Bo. 55 Qatar (QAT) Rtg - 134 Seychelles (SEY) Rtg 4 : 0
55.1 GM Al-Sayed Mohammed 2495 - CM Meier Kurt 1991 1 - 0
55.2 GM Zhu Chen 2480 - Pillay Ragul 0 1 - 0
55.3 IM Nezad Husein Aziz 2394 - Vinayagamurthy Kasthuri 0 1 - 0
55.4 Al-Tamimi Hamad 2250 - Louise Eli 0 1 - 0

GM Ketevan Arakhamia Grant, Board 2 Scotland:

Round 1 on 2010/09/21 at 15:00
Bo. 63 Scotland (SCO) Rtg - 141 Burundi (BDI) Rtg 4 : 0
63.1 GM McNab Colin A 2445 - Ndikumana Yves 0 1 - 0
63.2 GM Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan 2451 - Ntagasigumwami Deo 0 1 - 0
63.3 GM Shaw John 2446 - Nininahazwe Tony 0 1 - 0
63.4 FM Morrison Graham 2345 - Rwamavubi Jean Bosco 0 1 - 0

WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni, Board 5 Luxembourg - did not play today.

By the way, the playing venues look crappy to me (venues, yes, because not all of the teams are housed in one venue).  Cramped and crowded.  No room for anyone to stop by and overlook a game. Yeah, I get the thing about this being a TEAM event, but honestly, sitting four or five people at one long table, and then putting four or five people opposite them, with barely a foot in between each player.  Yechy!  This is supposed to be a world premiere event. Why cannot the players have world premiere playing conditions?  What I saw in the photos online today from the venue - sucks.  No room to move.  No room to BREATHE!

Round 1 coverage elsewhere:

Susan Polgar's Chess Daily News and Information - she has top team pairings up for Round 2 (Open and Women's), as well as several news features on various Teams playing at the Olympiad gathered from news sources around the globe and chess problems taken directly from the Olympiad.  I tell you, the Woman Never Sleeps. 

Kudos to Chessdom.com for giving full coverage to the Women's R1 results.  Thank you!

The Week in Chess:

39th Chess Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk 2010 (1)
Grischuk concedes draw on top board for Russia on Day 1
Mark Crowther | Tue Sep 21 17:01:00 2010

39th Chess Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk 2010 (Russia's FiveTeams)
Russia's Five Teams
Mark Crowther | Tue Sep 21 08:21:00 2010
[That is, Five Men's Teams.  That is outrageous in and of itself.  Even more outrage is that there are Three Women's Teams, for a total of eight.  Russia gets to throw the best players it has - multiple times - against single teams of Open and Female players sent by the other nations.  And FIDE says the Olympiad ain't rigged. Yeah, right.]