Round 1

⬇︎ Kruk-Ibrahimova after Bg6

After rebooking flights 3 times and investing over a thousand Euro’s with Norwegian Air I finally arrived in a very sunny Tromso, even though it was late in the evening. Being so far north and of course the most northern of any Olympiad the sun barely sets, dropping briefly below the horizon around midnight only to start rising again within two or three hours.

Facilities on arrival were very well organised with the expected Norwegian efficiency whisking everyone off to their respective lodgings within moments of exiting the airport. The Irish contingent have been accommodated in the Radisson Blu in the centre of town and just a 10 minute walk to the venue whilst our three arbiters are staying on a holiday camp about 65 km from the venue but I'm assured the Fjordside views from the veranda make up for the distance. In total there are 16 in the Irish party plus a few family and I wonder is this the most ever for an Olympiad. 10 players, 2 captains, 1 FIDE Delegate and 3 arbiters.

In round one the ladies were paired against a solid Azerbaijan side, who incidentally are hosting the next Olympiad. All the matches were looking solid for a time and showing no real problems until the Azeri skills eventually overwhelmed our girls. An interesting game was Karina's on board 4 where she made a questionable bishop sac on g6, but at the time it certainly gave her opponent a fright with the rest of her team crowding round the board.

Round 2

After this 4-0 defeat we were paired against an unrated Pakistan and with little or no games in the database there wasn’t a great deal of precision prepping that could be done so we came up with a simple plan – Win 4-0 and the girls followed it through to the letter. It was a bit of a rough scoreline for the Pakistanis as the fairer result was 2-2 but both Gearoidin and Diana got a bit lucky in their endgames and managed to convert for a full house 4-0.

In round 3 we'll be up against a strong Mongolian side but the nice thing about this round is the board number we’re playing which reads:

• 33 Ireland
• 34 England
• 35 Scotland

Early days I know but it's nice to be ahead England on the boards at any time!! More later!

Round 3

Going in to round 3 confidence was high despite the large rating disadvantage. There was no shame in the games today with everyone giving their all to try and squeeze anything out of such a tough match against the Mongols. Poornima deserves particular mention by getting the better game against an opponent over 500 points ahead of her and a full IM. In the end under extreme time pressure the IM managed to hoover up the bits. At one point Fritz gives Poornima a 2.1 advantage. Photo, another.

After this 4-0 defeat I fear we will now start yo-yoing around the scoreboard.

I’m also now being used as a Russian translator for some of the matches where it seems some of the Russian speaking countries have problems understanding the rules but only when it suits them!

As a result of this I’m getting to know of new rules I didn’t even know existed, mainly concerning visually impaired competition chess but interesting none the less. Poor Gerry Graham as he has been typecast in an arbiting sense and is in charge of IBCA (International Braille Chess Association) games for the entire Olympiad. In one match, due to limited language skills, neither team could communicate with each other or the arbiter. It took Gerry 35 minutes to give them a crash course in chess in English before the match could commence.

This morning we’re prepping now against Chile who are a side we should be beating to climb the table and improve on our seeding. All it takes is an extra effort on current play and I know the girls can achieve this.

It’s a special day today being my birthday so all I want from the girls is a good game and a win against Chile, not too much to ask.

Round 4

Chile were certainly yet another tough team for us but at least not a whitewash with Poornima and Karina holding draws on board 1 & 4 giving the South Americans a 3-1 win. With board 4 being a pawn up their captain was reluctant to accept. Nicole (Chile board 4) regularly plays in the 4NCL for Oxford as she is currently studying there, but will soon lose her place to Ariane (Levon Aronian’s girlfriend) in the varsity team as Ariane will soon start studying also in Oxford. I had an email from Levon a couple of months ago telling me about this and that he would be spending a lot more time in England so a trip to Ireland was certainly possible so watch this space.

Round 5

Palestine were a different team altogether and this is a result of the yo-yo effect. Their only resistance came on board 4 where they made a draw despite all Karina’s best efforts. Hannah was first off the marks winning quite easily, attacking down the f-file and winning a piece. Diana was next by winning the exchange, then a couple of pawns before her opponent threw in the towel. Poornima’s opponent on board one had no idea of the time control and failed to complete her 40 moves in the first 90 minutes. She sat there shocked after being told by the arbiter the game was over. I was hoping for an early day after these first 3 wins but Karina had other ideas by keeping the game going until twenty to seven. It was quite refreshing for Palestine to resign at generally the right time as so often games are going on to ridiculous lengths, right to checkmate.

Lebanon are next on our middle eastern tour. I know their captain quite well and his sister lives not far from me but I don’t suppose I’ll get any help from him! It’s a rest day today with Bermuda party last night but I wimped out early so haven’t got any gossip except for Hannah accosting poor Magnus Carlsen but I’ll try and get the full scoop today.

Rounds 6 and 7

Apologies for the delay in reporting. The reason is that there has been a change of personnel (and of reporter), as Gary O’Grady has had to return home. Being Women’s team Captain does not necessarily mean that there are not still other women in one’s life, as Gary has found.

The story is that Gary’s partner was due to have a baby; with remarkably conscientious forward planning, Gary ensured that the baby was due to arrive two days after the end of the Olympiad, and so duly set off to Tromsø to devote his attentions to the women’s team. However, the baby clearly has a mind of her own, and seems to be a bit of an attention-seeker, as she decided to arrive ten days early, right in the middle of the Olympiad. So Gary rushed back to be with his partner, and, we are pleased to report that Gary arrived in time to be there for the birth of his daughter, Anna, and that mother and baby (and Gary) are all now doing fine.

But the women’s team still needed a captain, and so, at very short notice, the ICU Chairperson has stepped in to fill the vacancy, and is now writing this report. It was a very strange 24 hours for me: on Thursday evening I was planning a leisurely weekend of light gardening and catching up on some reading, when I received Gary’s news; 24 hours later I was in Tromsø, and trying to battle, having just travelled through the night, with picking up the reins as team captain. I can report that, under Gary’s guidance, the team are in very good spirits, and morale is high; I am trying to do what I can to maintain that. So, to the team’s performance.

I was not here for round 6, but discovered on arrival that we had lost narrowly to the higher-rated team from Lebanon, in a close match. Our round 7 opponents were Qatar, who were weak on paper (their top women – ex-world champion Zhu Chen – is playing for their Open team) but had been playing very well, and obviously receiving a significant amount of serious coaching. Nevertheless we boldly decided to leave out Poornima, our number one player, so that she will be rested for the arduous games ahead. That stratagem seemed to work, though the team did it the hard way. On top board, Diana had a good position out of the opening, but overplayed it and missed some nasty tactics, so that the game came to quite a quick and unfortunate end. On bottom board, Karina’s attack fizzled out, leaving her advanced pawns weak, so that when the young Qatari player neatly simplified down to a rook and pawn ending, Karina’s pawns began to disappear like the swallows in Galway will do soon, but rather less voluntarily. Eventually, three pawns down and with resignation seemingly inevitable, Karina tried one last trick, and her opponent, who had probably relaxed because the game seemed over, carelessly dropped her rook. The moral, yet again, is that games are never won by resigning, and that one has to keep one’s concentration until the very end. The remaining two games were somewhat less exciting, and Hannah and Gearóidín showed their class by quietly outplaying their opponents, ensuring an overall 3-1 win. So a potential mishap had been safely avoided.

Next up are the much stronger Bosnian team, who beat England 3½-½ in an earlier round.

A couple of personal comments. I had not realised how exhausting it can be being a non-playing captain: I am required to be present throughout the games, but am powerless to intervene and my emotions are determined entirely by the proceedings on the four boards. And, secondly, the toilets at the playing venue are indeed truly awful: I could see several players jigging up and down in the hope that they would get their game over with so that they could escape to use the facilities in the nearest hotel. That won’t be in the book of the tournament, but it should be: games will be lost and won for that reason alone.

Round 8

We put in a good performance against Bosnia-Herzegovina, managing to significantly outperform England’s score against them. The match started badly for us, as our top two boards both quickly went wrong in early tactics, putting us 2-0 down. But Gearóidín and Karina, on boards three and four, were both in it for the long haul, playing good, solid chess.

Gearóidín got into a strange minor-piece ending in which both sides had passed central pawns; Gearóidín pushed hers but somehow her opponent neglected to do much with her passer, which had looked the more dangerous, and Gearóidín eventually managed to gobble it up and then win the minor piece for her passed pawn. Although that put her a piece up, she had by then run out of pawns, and so had to fight for the draw, which she duly achieved.

Karina’s opponent also obtained a dangerous passed central pawn, but Karina had it well under control, some neat endgame tactics netted a couple of pawns, and Karina then brought home the victory in fine style. So at the end we had obtained 1½ points, which we would have taken at the beginning, though of course an extra half point or two would have been even better.

A few words about the venue. We play in a building which apparently was used to make Mack beer, giving rise, of course, to bad jokes - best ignored - about the Irish playing in a brewery. They must have made a lot of Mack, as the place is huge. The architecture is unremittingly industrial and unappealing, though they have softened it somewhat by carpeting it throughout. The hall is one vast room, divided into sections by rope barriers, not entirely satisfactorily. The very top boards are cordoned off, but the main playing area for the men gets quite overcrowded by spectators. When I was wandering around there yesterday I was twice barged out of the way by Kramnik rushing to get back to his board – and I can report that Kramnik carries a hefty barge. Luckily, perhaps, the Irish women play at the far end, where there is less spectator interest: but even at our more humble level I have discovered that having a good technique for barging through people who are blocking the aisles is an essential for an international chess player.

The building has no air-conditioning or natural light, and tends to get stuffy and airless with all the people in it. To remedy that, the large doors (think industrial-scale) at our end are left open, creating a serious draught on certain boards: we happened to be on just one of those boards, and we were soon reminded that we were indeed in the arctic. The Bosnians had come prepared, and played in coats, scarves, and woolly hats; whilst those of our team who had them put up their hoodies and hid under them. (Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to take photographs more than ten minutes in, but if there was a photo the caption would certainly be Chess in the Arctic.) When I checked this morning, none of our team had suffered from the experience: but playing chess can be a more dangerous business than most people realise.

Next up we have Ethiopia, and hopefully for both teams we will be on a less cold board.

Round 9

Ethiopia proved harder to break down than we had expected; it seems that many of the ‘minor’ countries are improving rapidly, partly as a result of funding provided by both FIDE and the Kasparov initiatives, which is certainly good for chess overall.

But to the match. Almost out of the opening the Ethiopian board 4 missed a little combination that netted Karina a piece, and the game proceeded smoothly from then on for Karina to secure a quick win with some neat tactical simplifications. The other games were not looking too good at that point, particularly as Hannah had dropped a pawn which eventually proved decisive as the Ethiopian player adroitly side-stepped all Hannah’s attempts at getting some counter-play. But no sooner had Karina won than Diana’s opponent, who had a good position, walked into a combination that lost a piece after a series of exchanges, as the final recapture would have left a back-rank mate; a second piece soon followed the first as Diana kept taking advantage of her opponent’s weak back rank; and then she lost on time – apparently to her surprise – in what was anyway a quite hopeless position. That left Poornima on board one, who had a tight game, but won a pawn after the first time control and smoothly converted the advantage in the endgame.

That win takes us back to just above our seeding position; next up is Uruguay, who are much the same strength as us, so the yo-yoing that tends to happen in a large Swiss (losing to stronger teams, then beating weaker ones) has now come to an end.

There has been quite a lot of publicity that we are not allowed to take mobile phones and similar devices into the playing hall, and that there are security checks at the door – though the searching of bags is fairly perfunctory. It was therefore a bit of a surprise to hear an announcement, immediately before the start of the game, informing us that a mobile phone was found yesterday in the playing area, and whoever had lost it should report to the organizers to get it back. Will the culprit dare? What will be the penalty if they do? I doubt if we will ever know, alas, but the announcement provided us all with some amusement.

In other events, Kasparov lost the FIDE Presidential election, though frankly the chess-playing and the chess-politics don’t seem to be having much impact on each other. A large number of men in suits have turned up in the last few days, and hang around self-importantly getting in the way, but, apart from that, those of us who are here to play chess are just getting on with it. Kasparov was kind enough to lay on a party a couple of evenings ago, featuring a comedy magician, which the more energetic players went to; and there are a lot of pro-Kasparov posters around, and pro-Kasparov tee-shirts being worn (presumably having been given out free earlier on); but obviously parties and tee-shirts for the players did not secure votes. I think most of us are now glad that that is all over for another four years.

Back to the Irish team. Two of our wins were particularly important, as they gave Ireland two new titled players: Karina Kruk’s excellent score of 6/8 means that she becomes a Women’s FIDE Master (and with one round to spare, to boot), and Diana Mirza’s 3½/7 gives her the Women’s Candidate Master title – doubtless the first of many. Congratulations to Karina and Diana.

Round 10

Uruguay proved a bit too much of a handful for us. All the games were hard-fought, and after well over two hours play there was nothing much in any of them. Then Gearóidín lost a pawn to a zwischenzug, although her subsequent heroic defence eventually managed to save the half point. By then Poornima had also obtained a draw after a complicated game, giving perpetual with her king in a mating net. But Diana’s opponent – down to the increment with a full 20 moves still to play before the first time control – managed to steer her way safely through some difficult tactics, and emerged with considerably more material, which she duly converted. Hannah’s game was the most unfortunate: Hannah worked up a seemingly overwhelming king-side attack after she had castled queen-side; but then faced with two choices of threatening mate on h7 she chose the more aesthetic one, which turned out to have the drawback that the only move to stop the mate also trapped her attacking bishop.

Nevertheless Hannah obtained two pawns for the piece and was still attacking her opponent’s king, but she couldn’t break through and then went down to three pawns for a rook, with both sides also having two minor pieces. Somehow the Uruguayan managed to snuff out the last vestige of the attack, and, although Hannah had two connected passed pawns on the queenside, she was never able to push them and instead got remorselessly pushed backwards until defeat was inevitable in the last game to finish. This 3-1 defeat has put paid to any chances we might have had of challenging for the grading prize at this level, though Uruguay are now in the leading pack for it.

The following day (Wednesday) is a rest day. Right on cue the weather broke on the Tuesday evening; gone where the gloriously sunny and warm days (and very long days at that) of the earlier part of the week, and in came clouds resting low over the mountains that surround Tromsø, giving a grey Wednesday with constant rain – the sort of day we know too well from home, certainly in the west of Ireland. The timing of this rest day was somewhat strange anyway: the players could get well rested to take on just the one remaining round, which has been switched to the morning to leave the evening free for a lavish closing ceremony. But we didn’t know which players will be on the opposing team until about 11 o’clock the night before, leaving precious little time for any preparation if one also wanted to get some sleep. I’m sure there is a reason for not announcing the teams in the morning as normal, but it is not clear to me what it is. The weather seemed to confirm that Wednesday was the wrong day to choose to rest.

Round 11

The final round saw us drawn to play against South Korea. Strangely, this is the third Olympiad in a row that we have played Korea, and despite being always higher-rated we have never beaten them: last time we lost, and the time before that drew. So obviously this time would be third time lucky, wouldn’t it?

Our team for the last match picked itself, as Gearóidín reported in sick shortly before the deadline for submitting the players on the evening before. (Though, I should add, she was not seriously ill, and has happily fully recovered.) The Koreans rested their reserve (aged only ten) who nevertheless was allowed in to watch the match – which is strictly against the rules, but common sense prevailed for once. So to the match itself.

The Korean top board has been having a fine tournament, scoring 7/9 before this match, including a win over a player rated over 2200. Against her, Poornima went in for some complicated tactics in the centre, which left the Korean with a dangerous attack. It turned out that there was a way of blunting the attack, but Poornima did not see it, and so ended up being mated. But not to be outdone, Diana, on board two, worked up a strong attack of her own, and broke through conclusively shortly after, making the match score 1-1.

That left the bottom two boards, which both seemed roughly equal, though the games took different trajectories. In Karina’s on board four, pieces were swapped off fairly regularly, until a drawn bishops-of-opposite-colours ending was reached, with Karina’s opponent having slightly weaker pawns. Karina tried nobly to win it, and managed to invade with her king and win a pawn, but the position was still drawn and the Korean demonstrated that she knew how to draw it. On the other hand, Hannah and her opponent left most of the pieces on, and also played quite slowly, so that the Korean went under 5 minutes with 20 moves to make to the time control, with Hannah following her under 5 minutes a few moves later (though both gained a 30 second increment for each move, of course). I expected that the ensuing time-scramble would resolve the situation – hopefully in Hannah’s favour – but both players managed to reach move 40 without any disaster happening to them, leaving the position roughly equal and unclear, with quite a lot of play still left to look forward to. With this the only game remaining, and the match depending on it, the decisive event occurred; and it did not happen on the board. To explain it, I need a brief detour.

I have already described the playing arena as one huge room, which is true; but the room is not quite rectangular, but sort of L-shaped. The lower teams in the Women’s event play in the foot of the L, without a view of the rest of the hall, and that is where we were playing. (It is, incidentally, better to play there as it is free of the draughts I described in an earlier report.) Shortly after Hannah and her opponent reached the time control, we all heard a commotion taking place in the main area of the hall, with a lot of very loud shouting and screams. It was difficult to work out what was going on – at first it sounded like a fight – but it eventually turned out that someone had had a heart attack and was on the ground surrounded by paramedics who were trying to revive him. This disturbance affected both Hannah and her opponent, and so they decided to agree a draw in their game, rather than play on when neither could concentrate properly. Some other players in other matches managed to continue, but I frankly don’t know how; it was a very distressing and disturbing event, which was made worse when we all discovered – some hours later – that the medics had been unable to revive the person and he had died in the middle of the tournament hall. (He was, incidentally, a player from the Seychelles.)

So my involvement with the Olympiad started with a birth – Gary’s daughter Anna – and ended with a death. I am afraid this rather puts the importance (or unimportance) of chess into perspective. But to try to sum up briefly. The match with South Korea was drawn, and so we have still not beaten them; their captain kindly offered to give us another chance at the next Olympiad.

We finished slightly lower than our initial seeding (95th against 89), with 4 match wins, 6 losses and 1 draw, and 20½ game points, which was slightly worse than 2012 (+4 -5 =2; and 21 game points) and considerably better than 2010 (+3 -7 =1; 18 game points). So overall it was a fairly average result. Individually, we obtained two new titles: Diana Mirza gaining a WCM in her first Olympiad, at the age of 14, and Karina Kruk upgrading her WCM to the WFM title. Poornima Menon, on board one, had the highest rating performance, whilst Karina Kruk, playing on board four, scored the most points (6½/9) and gained 21 rating points; but every single player scored at least one important result when it mattered. This is a young team, and if they continue playing and gaining more experience they should be able to build on this result in Olympiads to come.