Chess Olympiad 2012 - Istanbul

[prashanthm]

Final Rd Pairings

Abhijeet is not playing the final round. So his board prize will depend on other results, while Tania is playing on the 2nd board today against higher rated Sophie Millet, need a good result for her chances at a board prize and a chance for BRONZE for the Indian Women's team....

Open - (7) Azerbaijan v. (13) India

Code: Select all

GM	Safarli, Eltaj	2620	-	GM	Sasikiran, Krishnan	2707	
GM	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	2729	-	GM	Harikrishna, Pentala	2685	
GM	Mamedov, Rauf	2634	-	GM	Negi, Parimarjan	2664	
GM	Guseinov, Gadir	2613	-	GM	Gopal, Geetha Narayanan	2550	

Women - (14) France v. (6) India

Code: Select all

IM	Skripchenko, Almira	2442	-	GM	Dronavalli, Harika	2503	
IM	Milliet, Sophie	2411	-	IM	Sachdev, Tania	2379	
WGM	Maisuradze, Nino	2284	-	WGM	Gomes, Mary Ann	2396	
WIM	Bollengier, Andreea	2253	-	WGM	Soumya, Swaminathan	2271	

[Kumar]

I so wish that Anand had participated in this olympiad... it doesn't seem like he cares about ELO ratings as much this days. I guess he does not want to get tired .. He always has an excuse.. in the days past, india did not have quality players and he had to play inferior opponents and risk losing points (excuse from his camp)...

With the punishing rank system and the fitness reqd, there should be changes to olympiad... may be dock everybody 10 points for not playing it - assuming your country qualified ...allow no ranking for this tournament.. de-recognize any tournaments during olympiad...

[prashanthm]

Good news first, Abhijeet gets the Silver on 4th Board & Tania gets the Bronze on 3rd Board......
I think this is the first time ever that India had an Olympiad Individual medal in both the sections......

Indian Women beat France finish 4th, better than their starting rank of 6th......
Commendable performance that, missed out on the Bronze to better teams like Russia, China & Ukraine......
Harika was 5th on Top board with the last round win against Skripchenko....

In the open section, After today's loss to AZE, India finished 35th against their starting rank of 13th......
Only Abhijeet was in the top-10 on any of the boards......

[sameerph]

Excellent performance indeed by womens team . Finishing 4th must be the best ever performance by Indian team among men or women. Specially noteworthy performance by both Tania Sachdev & Harika & Abhijit on mens side.

Mens side ( except Abhijit ) was totally disappointing.

[prashanthm]

Finishing 4th must be the best ever performance by Indian team among men or women.

That's right Sameer, India had their last best finish in Calvia 2004, 6th in the Open section & 9th in the Women's section. That is also the year when Indian had their combined best performance ever..., Viji used to be the star performer those days (Board Silver in 2000 & 2002) and Vishy still used to play for the Indian team (Silver in 2004)..

This finish also helps the Indian Women team to qualify for the Women's World Team CH to be held next year.....

India finished 8th in the combined list this year......, RUS, CHN & UKR are the top-3...

Hoping for a better next Olympiad with Pari gaining more experience and some more youngsters coming through. On the women's side, if the AICF can resolve their differences with Humpy, we could have medal chances.....

[jaydeep]

Really terrific performance by our girls to finished on 4th position ... Our first top 5 finish in Chess Olympiad.

Also what a performance by Abhijeet and Tania to win individual medals ...

But very disappointed performance by our other men's team members.

[prashanthm]

I will cherish silver medal finish for long time: Abhijeet

Yet, he could not be denied the glory after a fine performance. “It’s not only me, Tania (Sachdev) also won a bronze, it’s an Indian double and I am very happy for Tania too. We have the same trainer and we also work together many times.”

Silver for Abhijeet Gupta, Tania Sachdev bags bronze

[prasen9]

The open performance was beyond dismal. I do not remember any other Olympiad that was as futile!