12/2/2008 – The games are over, but there are still plenty of stories to tell about one of the biggest and most spectacular chess Olympiads ever. We start our series of retrospective articles with one on the Elo winners, a medal-deciding game, on the most unusual results, the stolen diamond, the reception of the winners in their home countries and the trauma of a 0-4 loss against your arch rivals. Enjoy.
Your personal chess trainer. Your toughest opponent. Your strongest ally. FRITZ 20 is more than just a chess engine – it is a training revolution for ambitious players and professionals. Whether you are taking your first steps into the world of serious chess training, or already playing at tournament level, FRITZ 20 will help you train more efficiently, intelligently and individually than ever before.
Winning starts with what you know The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Looking for a realistic way to play for a win with Black against 1.e4 without taking unnecessary risks? The Taimanov Sicilian is a reliable system, and hence one of the best options out there!
€69.90
38th Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008
The Olympiad took place from November 12th to 25th, 2008, in the Congress
Hall in Dresden, Saxony, Germany. 156 teams from 152 nations participated,
with most of the top players present.
Statistics and stories
Who was the top rating winner in Dresden, which player added the largest
number of points to his or her current FIDE ratings? The answer is Aa
Citra Dewi of Indonesia, rated 1802, who scored 6.0/11 against strong
opposition and gained 69.8 points. She is followed by Cegmed Munhchuluun
of Mongolia, 1969, who gained 67.8, and WIM Joanna Majdan of Poland, 2284,
who gained 66.9. The biggest male winner was Mohamed Waqar of Pakistan,
rated 2207, who gained 63.5 rating points. We would also like to mention
that Atousa Pourkashiyan gained the title of WGM, an achievement that
was celebrated in the Tehran
Times.
But let us come to the big boys (and girls) and see how they fared. The following
lists represent a selection of players, mainly chosen on the basis of their
strength or because they are well-known names.
Ti.
Name
FED
Rtg
rtg+/-
GM
Sargissian Gabriel
ARM
2642
30.3
GM
Hillarp Persson Tiger
SWE
2543
27.7
GM
Kotronias Vasilios
GRE
2587
27.5
GM
Blagojevic Dragisa
MNE
2522
26.2
GM
Meier Georg
GER
2558
25.4
GM
Dao Thien Hai
VIE
2510
22.4
GM
Ragger Markus
AUT
2518
22.2
IM
Kobese Watu
RSA
2369
21.6
GM
Vallejo Pons Francisco
ESP
2664
20.7
GM
Akopian Vladimir
ARM
2679
19.4
IM
Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan
SCO
2448
19.1
GM
Predojevic Borki
BIH
2615
18.9
GM
Rodshtein Maxim
ISR
2609
18.6
GM
Beliavsky Alexander G
SLO
2619
16.9
GM
Short Nigel D
ENG
2642
16.0
GM
Fridman Daniel
GER
2630
15.5
GM
Howell David W L
ENG
2593
15.1
GM
Gelfand Boris
ISR
2719
14.4
GM
Aleksandrov Aleksej
BLR
2617
14.3
Ti.
Name
FED
Rtg
rtg+/-
IM
Fierro Martha
ECU
2361
34.7
WIM
Pourkashiyan Atousa
IRI
2241
30.6
GM
Chiburdanidze Maia
GEO
2489
24.4
WGM
Goletiani Rusudan
USA
2359
24.2
WFM
Ozturk Kubra
TUR
2254
24.1
WGM
Gomes Mary Ann
IND
2298
21.3
WGM
Motoc Alina
ROU
2313
20.3
WGM
Krivec Jana
SLO
2345
19.8
IM
Moser Eva
AUT
2376
19.7
WFM
Milligan Helen
NZL
1957
19.2
IM
Socko Monika
POL
2434
17.7
IM
Sedina Elena
ITA
2365
17.1
IM
Zatonskih Anna
USA
2440
16.6
IM
Mkrtchian Lilit
ARM
2443
15.0
WGM
Sharevich Anna
BLR
2322
14.7
WGM
Munguntuul Batkhuyag
MGL
2410
14.6
IM
Madl Ildiko
HUN
2376
14.4
IM
Kosintseva Nadezhda
RUS
2468
13.0
WIM
Caoili Arianne
AUS
2170
12.1
Veselin Topalov, who had a rating performance of 2821, added just five points
to his 2791 FIDE rating. Boris Gelfand's 2833 performance earned him 14.3 points
(as you can see in the table above), and Peter Leko's prize-winning 2834 performance
on board one will add 10.8 points to his 2747 FIDE rating.
The (unofficial) live top list of provisional world chess rankings, which covers
all players with a rating above 2700 in the FIDE system, compiled the following
list on November 25th at 19:05, immediately after the last round of the Olympiad:
#
Player
Rating
change
gms
evnts
born
01
Topalov
2796.0
+5
8
1
1975
02
Anand
2790.8
+7.8
11
1
1969
03
Ivanchuk
2778.6
-7.4
19
3
1969
04
Carlsen
2775.7
-10.3
17
2
1990
05
Morozevich
2771.5
-15.5
20
2
1977
06
Kramnik
2759.5
-12.5
20
2
1975
07
Leko
2757.8
+10.8
10
1
1979
08
Radjabov
2753.1
+1.1
14
2
1987
09
Wang Yue
2750.6
+14.6
23
4
1987
10
Aronian
2750.4
-6.6
16
2
1982
11
Movsesian
2748.4
+16.4
23
4
1978
12
Jakovenko
2742.8
+5.8
32
5
1983
13
Gelfand
2732.9
+13.9
17
2
1968
14
Shirov
2731.0
+5
23
4
1972
15
Mamedyarov
2727.9
-3.1
16
2
1985
16
Alekseev
2726.2
+11.2
25
4
1985
17
Ponomariov
2725.6
+6.6
9
2
1983
18
Kamsky
2724.8
-4.2
16
2
1974
19
Bacrot
2719.5
+14.5
29
4
1983
20
Grischuk
2719.1
+0.1
15
2
1983
21
Dominguez
2716.8
-2.2
10
1
1983
22
Svidler
2714.0
-13
34
5
1976
23
Adams
2712.5
-21.5
29
4
1971
24
Gashimov
2711.4
+8.4
15
2
1986
25
Sasikiran
2711.3
+17.3
24
3
1981
26
Ni
2711.2
+1.2
21
4
1983
27
Akopian
2707.9
+28.9
20
3
1971
28
Karjakin
2706.1
-23.9
17
3
1990
29
Vachier-Lagrave
2703.0
-13
30
4
1990
30
Rublevsky
2702.0
0
0
0
1974
31
Bu
2700.8
-13.2
14
2
1985
The web master of Live Top List,
Hans Arild Runde, is livid at the drastic
change of the World Championship cycle by FIDE ("despite binding contracts
with the Grand Prix participants"). He has decided, as a consequence, to
temporarily discontinue his service on a day to day basis. Instead he is asking
his visitors to write to FIDE – relevant links are given – "to
tell them that it's quite unacceptable to make huge changes to an on-going qualification
cycle, and that this decision needs to be reversed as soon as possible. However,
if you consider the chance fairly low that FIDE would ever do anything like
that, you could instead ask the Treasurer to simply make €50,000 payable
to the Webmaster of chess.liverating.org - you know, to remove future uncertainty
and improve our finances and so on."
In round 11 Peng Zhaoqin of Holland got a tremendous advantage against Tatiana
Konsintseva of Russia.
42.Rb8+? Here Deep Fritz 11, which has been giving White more
than +4 since the time control, wants 42.cxb5 Rc8 43.b6 Rd8 44.Rc7 Bc8 45.Qa2
with a +4.50 evaluation. 42...Rc8 43.Rxc8+ Bxc8 44.d7 Qb6+ 45.Ke2 Bxd7
46.Qxd7 bxc4
So why are we showing you this game? Well, as Chess
Today pointed out, this game was decisive for the Gold Medal going to the
Georgian team. Had Peng won this game the match Netherlands-Russia would have
been drawn 2-2 (instead of 2½:1½ for the Russians). Ukraine had
beaten the Netherlands 3½-½ in an earlier round and would have
thus had a better tiebreak than Georgia, who drew with Russia 2-2.
The most unusual result of the Olympiad was that of a player named Yohannes
Simbolon, who is unrated and without a birth date on his FIDE card (he is around
fifty). Her drew his tenth game on board three for Indonesia in 91 moves and
in the process spoiled a unique record. In all nine previous games our hero
had won every single white game and lost every single black one.
Yohannes, seeded 734th in the Olympiad, had even beaten a grandmaster, Nikola
Mitkov, in a white game, to achieve a rating performance of 2366. Memo to self:
must find out more about this player.
In case you missed it: our Ukrainian friend and associate Olena Boytsun pointed
out that there was a serious error in the English translation by Russia
Today of the original Russian language story regarding the stolen diamond
in the Nona Gaprindashvili International Trophy (see our
report). Apparently it was not the Georgians or "Gruzin" who removed
the diamond from the statue at Kiev airport, but baggage handlers or "gruzchik".
The Ukrainian news portal Today
displayed the missing diamond in the trophy.
The Armenian Chess Olympiad champions received a tumultuous welcome on their
return, in the plane of their President Serzh Sargsian, in the capital Yerevan.
You can watch it on this
YouTube video:
The Georgian women's team returned to Tblisi to a similarly warm welcome. President
Mikheil Saakashvili met with the Olympic Champions and awarded cash bonuses
and Orders of Honors to the players, who won Gold for the fourth time. As the
broadcasting company Rustavi
2 reports: the president thanked the chess players for "restoring the
glory of the Georgian chess school and proving that Georgian chess is not only
alive but is in a good form, as well." There is a video on the page as
well.
Meanwhile the players from Azerbaijan were clearly shattered by their 0-4 loss
against arch rivals Armenia. The two contries have hostile relations over the
disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh,
and this can sometimes be felt at chess events. Panorama.am
reports:
Zeiynab Mamediarova, who is the best chess player of Azerbaijan, said that
Azeri women chess players were under pressure as 'enemious character' against
Armenians is sowed among them. [we assume she means that they are being incited
to regard Armenians as enemies]. According to Azeri media, Mamediarova admitted
that the most difficult meeting in Dresden was the one with Armenians when
they have been crucially defeated by 4-0 points. “The only reason of
that defeat was the pressure on us. Armenians did not have such feelings and
they managed to be well prepared to the game. Any game with Armenia is much
spoken in our country and everything is accepted not as it is to be,”
she said.
Rossolimo-Moscow Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 10950 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 612 are annotated.
The greater part of the material on which the Rossolimo/Moscow Powerbook 2025 is based comes from the engine room of playchess.com: 263.000 games. This imposing amount is supplemented by some 50 000 games from Mega and from Correspondence Chess.
Focus on the Sicilian: Opening videos on the Najdorf Variation with 6.h3 e5 7.Nb3 (Luis Engel) and the Taimanov Variation with 7.Qf3 (Nico Zwirs). ‘Lucky bag’ with 38 analyses by Anish Giri, Surya Ganguly, Abhijeet Gupta, Yannick Pelletier and many more.
Throughout the video course, Sasikran shows various examples from his career to explain sacrifices for initiative, an attack, a better pawn structure and much more.
In this insightful video course, Grandmaster David Navara shares practical advice on when to calculate deeply in a position — and just as importantly, when not to.
€19.90
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.
Pop-up for detailed settings
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies, analysis cookies and marketing cookies. You can decide which cookies to use by selecting the appropriate options below. Please note that your selection may affect the functionality of the service. Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Technically required cookies
Technically required cookies: so that you can navigate and use the basic functions and store preferences.
Analysis Cookies
To help us determine how visitors interact with our website to improve the user experience.
Marketing-Cookies
To help us offer and evaluate relevant content and interesting and appropriate advertisement.