2008 Chess Olympiad: Some Final Thoughts

It's all over for another two years, thank Goddess! I am now wracking my brain trying to figure out how I can possibly report on all of the news on the chess femmes in this Olympiad in my final column for Chessville. Well, I guess I'll have to make it the biggest (and hopefully the best) column yet, with a special section devoted entirely to the Olympiad. I still have a few days, it's not due to be published until the beginning of December. I foresee a four-day weekend of sleepless nights... There are now a wide variety of websites that provide first-class information on chess events - some more timely than others (but for those less "timely", always worth the wait, darlings). Here are those I am most familiar with - by no means all of the sites that provide news and insight into the happenings in the world of chess. Special thanks and unending admiration for the following - how the hell do they do what they do day after day after day...

• Kudos to GM Susan Polgar who did triple-duty - not only reporting information at her blog, but also serving as Chess Ambassador and English-Language Press Liason, as well as holding great interviews daily with players and personalities from the Olympiad. Thanks also to Paul Truong, the official photographer for this Olympiad, for his fantastic and candid photographs, round after round, from off days, the official opening, the official close, and everything in-between. I am appreciative of the great job that both Polgar and Truong did.
• I was very happy that Chessdom went back to its "live" blog for coverage of Round 11. I did not like the "live chat" experiment - most of the comments were boring, common, and disjointed. It was hard to follow what was going on. In the "live" blog, on the other hand, it was easy to follow the action as the time counted down toward the end of the games.
• The Week in Chess has set the standard ever since I've been online (December, 1998) and no doubt from before! Mark Crowthers lets nothing stand in his way of going the extra mile, whether it be going over games move by move to create and/or correct PGN notations or correctly identifying otherwise sometimes obscure players.
• I was very impressed with Chess Vibes - very current reports, great photographs and a slamming lay-out. How'd you do that?
• Europe E'checs provided much-needed information - in French (but they have English translation on some pages).
• Mig Greengard has such a wicked sense of humor! His Daily Dirt blog (part of Chess Ninja) provides much-needed insight and lots of laughs, but be warned: all types hang out there, compensated for with a collection of wits and sparkling commentators, most of whose commentary probably whizzes over the ignoramus heads of the thankfully relatively few a-holes. I believe (but have no proof) that a lot of chess femmes read the commentary there but generally refrain from commenting themselves - only a brave few every now and then wade in.
• Daaim Shabazz's The Chess Drum is a must-read for keen insights into the chess world in general and, in particular, for news about chess players that generally aren't covered elsewhere.

A few final thoughts: I'm still absolutely amazed that the American men were able to repeat their miracle Bronze performance from 2006 in 2008 Dresden! More incredible, at least to me, is the US Women's Team performance. I honestly did not think they had a prayer of winning a medal. I'm quite happy to say I was SO SO WRONG. And I will eat my wool beret tonight for supper. Hell, I need a new one anyway, this one was looking rather ratty...

I am absolutely convinced that what happened to the Russian Teams (Men - oh, I mean "Open" - and Women) was Divine Justice being meted out to Miniputin, the ass! LOL - do you hear laughter, Pharaoh er, Miniputin? That's the sound of millions of chess fans falling off their chairs and rolling on the floor busting a gut in hilarity at the performances of the oh-so-vaunted #1 ranked teams entering the Olympiad: Russian Men and Russian Women. Bwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaa!

The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal

They're the only team other than USA and India I would care to see win the Gold. Sweet! Particularly Sweet since the Russian mobsters who put together the Women's World Chess Championship INSISTED that the female chessplayers of the world assemble in Nalchik, Russia, mere miles away from the GEORGIAN WAR ZONE after Russian invaded Georgia in August, 2008 a few weeks before the Championship was to convene. Those Russians particularly pooh-poohed the Georgian Women chessplayers' concerns - and the concerns of other Federations on behalf of their players - about sending their players to Nalchik.

Ha ha, Miniputin. The best is yet to come. Just watch what happens to your "vaunted" Ruble (Rubble?) in the coming months. Nothing personal against the players on the Russian chess teams - I suggest you emmigrate to Manhattan before President-Elect Obama takes office on January 20, 2009...

Russian Markets in Free Fall

Russian Exchanges Remain Closed a Second Day September 18, 2008 The New York Times MOSCOW — The Russian government will inject up to $20 billion into domestic stocks in an effort to halt the free fall of the Russian stock markets, President Dmitri A. Medvedev said Thursday, in the most direct effort yet to use oil profits to ease a deepening stock market crisis here. The two main Russian stock exchanges remained closed Thursday after authorities halted trading Wednesday afternoon. By that time, they had each lost about 57 percent since their peaks in May — the steepest fall of any major stock market since the current financial crisis erupted from Wall Street. In addition to fallout from turmoil in New York and declining oil prices, the Russian market has been weakened by poor corporate governance standards here and investor concerns about a breach in relations with the West after the war in Georgia. But unlike the American financial institutions that were bought up or declared bankruptcy this week, Russia has plenty of capital. The question is whether injecting some of it into the stock market will be enough to restore investor confidence — or whether it will be perceived as a sign of official desperation and perhaps even reason to flee Russian securities. Authorities used the market holiday to unveil measures intended to restore confidence in what had been until this year one of the world’s best-performing emerging markets. Under the plan, the government will directly invest 250 billion rubles, or about $10 billion, in domestic stocks in an effort to raise prices, Aleksei L. Kudrin, the finance minister said, according to Interfax. If that is not enough to stave off a market collapse, the government will amend the budget to free up another 250 billion rubles for investment. Eventually, he said, the government will seek to resell the shares for a profit if markets rise. Until then, Russian taxpayers will effectively hold them. The plan mimicked an effort by the government of Hong Kong to invest directly in the local stock exchange during the so-called Asian contagion of the late 1990s, when many Asian markets plunged more than 60 percent. In that case, the Hong Kong government later bundled its investments into a fund that made a profit as the market rebounded. The Russian government also announced lower oil export tariffs than had been expected, a move that should increase investor interest in energy companies. The tariff will be lowered on Oct. 1 to $50.70 a barrel, as opposed to the $66.20 a barrel that was expected. The government had set oil tariffs based on average prices in previous months. Under the adjustment, the government used only the sharply reduced oil prices of the first weeks of September to calculate the tariff, according to an investor note from Citibank. Also on Thursday, three Russian banks that had been given access to $44 billion in government money said the capital would be made available to other banks and brokerage companies investing in the stock exchanges. The measures underlined an assessment offered by the International Monetary Fund that the Russian economy has “buffers” that should prevent a repeat of the 1998 financial crisis here. “Over all, the macroeconomic situation remains strong and the country will maintain a current-account surplus even with lower oil prices,” a fund spokesman, David Hawley, told a news conference in Washington. In one positive sign, some Russian company shares that are traded as global depository receipts in London and New York rose on Thursday. Mr. Kudrin, the finance minister, said markets would reopen Friday morning.

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They think this is going to work, heh, closing the markets down for a day and a half? Bwwwwaaaaahhhhh!!!!

Russia's Actions Have Consequences

Well, Miniputin, don't say I didn't warn you, darling! The Russian stock market has been on a crash course since the ill-advised invasion of Georgia, and no end in sight now that commodities prices are beginning to moderate. The New York Times reported on 9/5/08 about it - the "summer sell-off" they called it. Some people may blow off a report in The New York Times because it's that "liberal" newspaper. But today none other than The Wall Street Journal reported on the Russian market crash - the CONTINUING Russian market crash, tee hee hee. I don't have a subscription to the online Wall Street Journal - I read it in the print edition at the office this morning. But Pravada speaks in the words of the Russians and THEY said it too! Decreasing oil prices destroy Russian stock market 10.09.2008 Source: Pravda.Ru The Russian stock market went lower than 1,400 points due to the reduction of the oil prices and the ongoing of outflow of capital, which investors currently conduct. Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin added more fuel to the fire when he said that Russia’s oil companies would not be provided with an additional reduction of tax burden. The RTS index dropped by 7.51 percent to 1,395.11 points. This level was previously reported in June 2006. MICEX index dropped by 9.08 percent to 1,158.07. The price of a barrel of oil reduced to $104.23, having lost $1.25 in comparison with Monday. Rosneft’s shares slipped by 9.54 percent, Gazprom – by 8.47, Lukoil – by 9.29 and Surgutneftegaz – by 6.16 percent. Ore-mining companies followed the oil sector. The shares of Norilsk Nickel reduced by 12,76 percent. Russia’s Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin said in Moscow during the annual Reuters Investment Summit that there would be no additional tax concessions made for oil companies in the nearest future because the concessions from 2009 would be enough. “As an economist, I can say that Russia has reached the line when we can not reduce taxes anymore. I hope the president will put an end to the tax debate in September,” Kudrin said. The opening of US stock exchanges exacerbated the situation on the Russian market even further. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 0.23 percent to 11483,95. Standard & Poor's 500 lost 0.55 percent and made up 1260,78 points. The positive effect from the news about the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lasted for only one day. It became clear to everyone that it was short-term news that would only give the market a short break. Market members paid attention to the general situation on the market, which remains negative.

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Tee hee hee. Just how many billions of foreign capital have fled the Russian markets, heh???

And darling Miniputin, don't say I didn't warn you when I did - quite clearly - about the folly of your actions. What was this I saw today at The New York Times? Oh my goddess - it's an article about how the Russian government's RECOGNITION of two break-away areas in Georgia, a sovereign state, have now given Russia's own break-away areas NEW HOPE. Gee whiz, who could have ever predicted that, heh?

“In the long term, they could have signed their own death warrant,” said Lawrence Scott Sheets, the Caucasus program director for the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that tries to prevent and resolve global conflicts. “It’s an abstraction now, but 20 years down the road, it won’t be such an abstraction.”

Moscow’s position is that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were extreme situations, in which decisions were driven by the threat to the lives of its citizens. Russian troops poured across the border early in August, after Georgian forces attacked civilian areas in the city of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, with rocket and artillery fire. [NOT TRUE - 43 people were killed in South Ossetian action BEFORE Russians rolled in and started targeting civilian populations OUTSIDE OF SOUTH OSSETIA.] Anyone who reads a newspaper or a non-biased source online knows for a fact that the Russians lied about the number of casualties used as an excuse for this invasion. And the separatists in the areas just itching to break away from Russia realize it too. Duh!

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To add yet more pain to the international humiliation being heaped upon Russian where it hurts much (their foreign reserves), the US Dollar is strengthening against both the Euro (chicken-sh*ts who could have but refused to give Russian a well-deserved spanking) and even more against the Ruble. Bwwwwwwaaaaaahhhhhhh!