A Quick Post

Well, I've been sick as a dog the past few days which means I missed much of the chess action in China at the World Youth Olympiad, as well as the start of Biel and Dortmund. I'm still feeling pretty rough so this post will be quick. The Australian teams seem to be doing ok at the Youth Olympiad. The 1st team is in the fight for the medals, and the 2nd team is competing in the middle of the tournament. This was pretty much as expected, and it is good that our kids, helped by their trainers should live up to expectations.

Today will be a make or break day with a double round which will see some teams catapult up the rankings, and some slide a fair way down. At the moment, round 7 is in action, and later today we'll have round 8. There are to be 10 rounds in all, with the tournament finishing on Monday.

There are some issues with the event. First, the official website is pretty bad. A lot of material has not been updated, and a couple of the links lead to blank pages. Now it wouldn't be such a bother if these pages weren't too important, but we're talking about "standings" and "pgn". In fact, the lack of published games has been really disappointing. The best place to find the results and scores is the chess-results server.

The other issue is the number of Chinese teams competing, about 40! While there is nothing in the rules against this happening, it makes the event a kind of Chinese tournament with a few other countries invited, rather than the international event it is meant to be. At the top of the tournament, these Chinese teams don't come into the equation too much, but in the middle, and at the bottom of the tournament, it is more than likely that they will be encountered. This is what the Australian 2nd team has found. Australia 2 are a mid strength team and rather than playing a group of international teams, they have played 5 different Chinese teams in the first 6 rounds.

Currently, Australia 1 in 8th place (joint 6th) and Australia 2 in 40th (joint 32nd). Good luck in the remaining 4 rounds!