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Alan, given that before the incident your position was drawn, a patient died within 50 yards of your board, his colleague ran the full length of the tournament hall shouting incoherently, all games were stopped for about 15 minutes, and there was a large crowd watching the resuscitation attempts for the rest of your game, and you didn't even know the reason for the commotion, I excuse your mistake on move 64 this time round. This experience should make you a better player for 2016. No excuses next time.
I
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Interesting, thanks Graham. Although we don't have any 13 year old IMs, the effect of having relative youth in the team appears to have some benefits.
The article also underlines how important the captain's role is - team spirit should be the priority of the captain.
Whilst I wouldn't want to spend every waking moment with the rest of the team, it would be nice to analyse games together. The closest we got to this in Tromso was looking at a computer screen with Stockfish.
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"For the first time that I can remember, I really felt that we (along with our captain) were participating and competing as a team. This was definitely helped by the group training sessions in the months prior to the Olympiad, as well as a warm-up tournament in Denmark that most of us participated in. In addition, we ate, relaxed, prepared, and passed the free time together, going for walks, playing cards, handball or hacky sack, or just messing around."
Alan, you were the only one who wanted this training. You can't force the others to do all this. I offered to play cards but there was no interest. What if it's the same 5 people for Azerbaijan ? The other 4 will just want the same, to prepare and post-analyse on their own. If you want youth do you think you should give up your place to Kai or Murad ? Most Scottish players don't get to Olympiad standard till their mid-30s. Keep working on your endgames - Carlsen couldn't win R+a+h+h v R yesterday.
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Just to clarify, David Smerdon wrote the article, not me.
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Yes, we have to be realistic about our chances next time.
Let's move onto the Club Cup. Have teams done training ? How will they do etc ?
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Could players please annotate a game for the magazine by deadline date of 20 September ?
