Yermo's Travels: The USA in Rhodes (part 3)

The last hurdle

The US team with grandmasters Alexander Shabalov, Joel Benjamin, Igor Novikov, Jaan Ehlvest and Alex Yermolinsky dominated the 50+ category with 17 points, three points ahead of their nearest rivals, Italy. Over the course of the tournament, the US dropped just one point, a 2:2 tie with Iceland. The best player of the team was Alexander Shabalov on the first board with 6 points out of 7 rounds. The US grandmasters lost only two games — as we saw in part 2, Igor Novikov went down to Johann Hjartarsson in the draw with Iceland, and earlier, reported in part 1, Jaan Ehlvest lost in the third round against England's John Emms.

The silver medal for Italy is a strong result considering they were the 6th placed team by starting rank. The Italians also played a 2:2 draw against Iceland, but dropped another point in a draw with Armenia and lost their match with the USA. The draw in the final round against Armenia was important, as Iceland had a chance at the silver medal themselves. But the Icelanders lost in the last round against Israel and fell out of medal contention. The Israeli team reached a tie for the bronze and took the 3rd spot on tiebreak score over Armenia, Iceland and England.

GM Yermolinsky picks up the narrative from the seventh round...

The last tough hurdle to clear for the U.S. Team was our match against Israel in Round 7

Board one was a wild affair. Shabba's position looked a bit suspect out of the opening, but toward the end he was surely winning.

The Fashionable Caro-Kann Vol.1 and 2

The Caro Kann is a very tricky opening. Black’s play is based on controlling and fighting for key light squares. It is a line which was very fashionable in late 90s and early 2000s due to the successes of greats like Karpov, Anand, Dreev etc. Recently due to strong engines lot of key developments have been made and some new lines have been introduced, while others have been refuted altogether. I have analyzed the new trends carefully and found some new ideas for Black.

Joel Benjamin was much better throughout the entire game, but couldn't overcome Ilan Manor's stiff resistance, while Jaan Ehlvest's delayed Benko failed to shake up the rock-solid Alexander Kaspi.

Seeing my teammates struggle a bit to make any headway, I had to press harder in my own game.

The Solid Slav Defence

This Slav DVD is a complete opening repertoire for black after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6. GM Nick Pert has played the Slav defence for over 10 years and provides all his latest and most up to date analysis crammed into one video series. Nick has spent many hours studying the best Slav lines, and he explains his favourite variations, plus includes some interactive clips where the viewer is tested on a range of theoretical questions and tactics arising from Slav games.

Sans Gelfand, Smirin and Huzman, the Israeli team is still quite good. In the end they won a critical battle against Iceland to capture Bronze medals, thanks to their superior game points count (26 points, even better than our 25½)

Our win over Israel put USA in the commanding lead, since we had already faced all the best teams. To answer our mood, the weather had finally turned to more of a summer season. The ocean waves subsided, and Captain Shabalov decided to test the waters. He came well-prepared. It turned out to a rather unnecessary precaution. A few minutes later we saw a girl paddling on her surfboard, while wearing a regular bathing suit, with a dog keeping her company.

Grandmaster 0-1 local girl

In Round 8 we defeated Austria 3½:½. I took an early draw after somewhat misplaying the black side of the Alapin Sicilian.

Later that day, Shabalov and I took a taxi to the other side of the island to visit local Billiards Academy. It turned out to be a quiet bar scene on a weekday night, with only a few tables busy, while the rest of the crowd was watching soccer on TV. To our mild disappointment they didn't have a snooker table. We ended up shooting some pool, while I nonetheless tried to maintain a proper snooker stance.

The last round was held in the morning. Italy was the only team with even a mathematical chance of overtaking us, but for that we needed to lose ½-3½ to Argentina. That remote possibility was quickly eliminated, as Novikov and Ehlvest took clinching draws. Throughout the whole event we played as a team, trying to make things easier for one another, be it at the cost of a few rating points.

Joel and I went into a typical GM technical mode, and were able to achieve smooth endgame wins.

Winning against the Grünfeld

The Grünfeld is a highly dynamic opening in which Black's position often seems to hang together by a single thread; and yet, this apparently precarious equilibrium appears to be enough to make it entirely viable — up to the highest level.

At the closing ceremony every player on Team USA was awarded an individual board prize. Shabalov and I took gold, while Benjamin, Novikov and Ehlvest collected bronze medals.

Jaan should have also been given the best dressed award, as he looked rather presidential.

Future president of Estonia?

The there were congratulations and more pictures taken.

See you next year in Prague!

Final standings after Round 9

All available games (Rounds 1-9)

Russian grandmaster efficiency

by Andre Schulz

The Russian team won the championship for player 65+ by a one point margin, undefeated. Four times, the Russian team had to settle for a 2-2 draw, however, against England, Germany, France and finally, Sweden.

The Russian match strategy was, in principle, to achieve a winning position on one board, and then to secure the team victory at the other boards with draws. Several times, the team overshot and scored more points, but other times the plan went wrong, as against France in the penultimate round, after a game was unexpectedly lost.

Bishop against Knight

In chess, the technique of exchanging pieces is the ultimate knowledge. The biggest specialists of this were such greats as Akiba Rubinstein and Vasily Smyslov. The exchange bishop for knight is the most common case. The technique of exploiting the individual power of these pieces is completely different.

The Russian Team: (L to R) Zhelnin, Balashov, Rashkovsky, Sveshnikov, Pushkov | Photo: Thorsten Cmiel

The German team was well in the race going into the final round, a point behind the Russians in second place.