2012 Olympiad

[Calum MacQueen]

Good chess today. Nice win but Colin seemed to miss a win earlier on with a Bex4-Ng4 moment. Nice to see Alan get on the board after some disappointing results. Couple of rounds left to keep charge going.

Grischuk just lost R + B vs R to give away the lead for the whole tournament (provided Kramnik loses that one). That's pretty poor from a 2760 odd. Whole thing is wide open now!

[George Neave]

Completely agree about Colin's - very nice, very creative

[Andy Howie]

I see Heather is playing for a WFM title today. A win gives her it. That would be a really good achievement from Board 1!

[HLang]

Yep. Shame it didn't work out in the end after a day and a bit of prepping for her.

[Alan Tate]

Well we finished below seeding in the end but in reality it means little when the result of one game can make the difference between 20 places.
I was critical of the last Olympiad so am willing to take some criticism as one of the under-performers this time round. Come on, let's have it ;-)

[David G Congalton]

I was critical of the last Olympiad so am willing to take some criticism as one of the under-performers this time round. Come on, let's have it ;-)

Alan, I'm sure you and all our other representatives will have tried as hard as they could.

You say you under-performed and that the team finished below seeding, having now experienced and played in the event, what steps/measures do you think can be taken to improve performances for next time around?

Were there any reasons why you feel you underperformed and perhaps others did too, that could be addressed for the next International event?

I'd rather see the opportunity taken to learn lessons and develop an approach that will improve the performance of the team.

[andyburnett]

I really enjoyed following the Scottish teams via the live boards coverage and I don't think anyone should feel bad about the result. As Alan states the result of one board can affect placings by a huge amount in this type of contest.

The one thing which was noticeable to me was the number of winning/clearly better positions which we eventually lost seemed to be greater than the number of losing/clearly worse positions we managed to turn around?! Is this simply because we were up against very strong opposition? Our players don't practice/play with the increment time controls? Something else? Or am I just plain wrong in my initial assessment?!?

@Heather, unlucky : ( but well done anyway overall I would like to know what the preparation was for the critical game though?

[Alan Tate]

Hi David, One thing I would suggest and have wanted for junior events for some time, is a couple of intensive training weekends say 2 weeks before the event. I think it's important to get everyone as close to match fitness as possible by round 1 as early results often determine what kind of tournament you will have.
Colin and John were the strongest performers but who knows what they could have done with some Dvoretsky training beforehand! As for my performance well let's just put it down to a lack of practice against strong opposition this year.

[Douglas Bryson]

Scotland has only finished above seeding once in the last 20 years - in Istanbul 2000 when we were 30th from a seeding of 50. We haven't beaten a top 30 side since 2000 (Brazil 2.5-1.5). This even includes the mega all-GM side from Dresden 2008 with Rowson and Aagaard etc.

The pre-event seeding this time was 65 - our lowest ever. This is a team of five former Scot Champs with a rating average over the top 4 of 2414. This rating average was better than any side we fielded before 1992. So for example a Scotland rating average of 2381 in Novi Sad 1990 was seeded 41st.

Since 1992 all the former Soviet states have increased the number of good sides. There has also been a bit of rating inflation. However even accounting for that we continue to slip down the rankings. I dont even think it is us going backwards. It is so many other countries overtaking.

As to why and what you can do about that's a more difficult one.

[amuir]

Keep trying lads, european next year, norway 2014
Reason why we were so good in the past + plenty of top 30 finishes = Paul Motwani