Baku Chess Olympiad

     Some months with promises of posts have passed with me having no inspiration at all...

     Finally, some days after the World Chess Olympiad in Baku finished, I've found some energy to share some subjective impressions about it.

 Corina Peptan, Elena Luminita Cosma, Ciprian Nanu, me and Cristina Foisor

     Many people say that it was the best organized Olympiad ever. Frankly, I don't share this point of view. I will try to explain myself.
     I liked the hotel we stayed in and Baku itself but the food was too big of a challenge for my stomach and I had problems with it from day 1 until the last day. Moreover, it was sooooo cold in the playing hall that I also got totally sick at the middle of the tournament. One could imagine my joy going to the round with my stomach crying, sniffing all the time and dreaming of a "Parasinus" I couldn't take because of an eventual doping control.

Elena Luminita Cosma, Angela Dragomirescu, Corina Peptan and me

     Another negative thing I had to experience was some arbiters' incompetence. Imagine the following situation: I am playing my game, the endgame looks quite drawish, though it's me who has to make the draw, I find some repetition, if my opponent doesn't go for it, I can finally have some ideas to improve my position, we've repeated the position for 2 times and suddenly my opponent goes to the arbiter saying she wants to ask the captain if to make a repetition or not, the arbiter allows her. I want to specify that there was no draw offer at all. Practically, my opponent was asking her captain "Should I make this move or not?". Despite our captain's protests nothing happened. The same situation happened to one of my teammates in another match, moreover, that other arbiter couldn't even speak English, though he was quite friendly with our opponents who were Spanish speakers as him and allowed the player to talk to the captain and ask about repetition.
      I suppose that the other participants didn't have the same experiences I had and that's the reason they call this Olympiad the best one ever.
     All these facts had shadowed the joy of being a part of the biggest celebration of Chess.
     Otherwise, Baku seemed to be a really nice city. I was happy to see many of my friends from all over the World. I am normally a very positive person and I've tried to find positive things to hold on to through the tournament...
     The tournament started quite good for our team, culminating in an equal match we've made vs the future winners- China. The 2nd part of the tournament didn't go as we wanted, though we fought very hard each match. I guess that the conclusions are yet to be drawn.
     Sport is sport!

Back to life

     I am back in Chisinau. I arrived yesterday, at about 4pm and slept until today :))) Yeah, the tournament was really exhausting for me.
     We finished on the 12th place, while being 10th in the starting list. The result is far from being called a success, but if to think that with one more draw (if I would have made a draw) in the last round, we would have taken the 6th place, one could understand how tense was everything until the very last moment.
     I ended the tournament on 50 % (4,5p/9) and some -3 Elo points.
     The best result by far in our team showed Alina l'Ami, who was in a very good form! You can see the statisctics here:

12. Romania (RtgAvg:2358, Captain: Szabo Gergely-Andras-Gyula / TB1: 10 / TB2: 175.5)
Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Pts.	Games	RtgAvg	Rp	w	we	w-we	K	rtg+/-
1	IM	Bulmaga Irina	2399	ROU	1	0	0	1	½	0	1	1	0	4.5	9	2367	2367	4.5	4.83	-0.33	10	-3.3
2	WGM	L'ami Alina	2361	ROU		½	1	½	1	½	1	1	½	6.0	8	2298	2491	6	4.55	1.45	15	21.8
3	IM	Foisor Cristina-Adela	2347	ROU	1	1	0	½	0		1	1	½	5.0	8	2247	2342	5	4.81	0.19	10	1.9
4	WGM	Cosma Elena-Luminita	2326	ROU	1	½		1	½	1	½		½	5.0	7	2197	2355	5	4.50	0.50	10	5.0
5	WGM	Voicu-Jagodzinsky Carmen	2275	ROU	1		½			0		½		2.0	4	2236	2236	2	2.16	-0.16	15	-2.4

     The tournament was won by the Ukraine's team, followed by the Russian and Polish ones.

Alina l'Ami, 6p/8

Luminita Cosma, 5p/7

Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky, 2p/4

Cristina Foisor, 5p/8

and me with 4,5p/9

     In the men's section, our team showed a great fighting spirit and finished on the 14th place, being 19th on the starting ranking list. Here are the statistics:

14. ROMANIA (RtgAvg:2590, TB1: 10 / TB2: 159.5)
Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	ID	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Pts.	Games	RtgAvg	Rp	w	we	w-we	K	rtg+/-
1	GM	LUPULESCU Constantin	2630	ROU	0	1	½	½	1	1	0	½	½	0	5.0	9	2634	2677	5	4.44	0.56	10	5.6
2	GM	JIANU Vlad-Cristian	2565	ROU	0	1	½	0	½		½	0	1	½	4.0	8	2567	2567	4	3.93	0.07	10	0.7
3	GM	PARLIGRAS Mircea-Emilian	2576	ROU	0	1	½	½	½	½	½	½	1	½	5.5	9	2523	2603	5.5	4.97	0.53	10	5.3
4	GM	NEVEDNICHY Vladislav	2590	ROU	0	1	½	1	1	0	½	½	1	1	6.5	9	2514	2680	6.5	5.14	1.36	10	13.6
5	GM	SZABO Gergely-Andras-Gyula	2548	ROU	0					½					0.5	1	2666	0	0.5	0.34	0.16	10	1.6

   
     Their best result in this tournament was the 2-2 with Ukraine! The next round they played against Russia and they were really close to a miracle, with Mircea Parligras and Vladislav Nevednichy pushing for a win. They lost the match eventually, but this didn't get them any lower in our eyes!

Mircea Parligras, 5,5p/9

Vladislav Nevednichy, 6,5p/9

Vlad Jianu, 4p/8

Constantin Lupulescu, 5p/9

and both our Captain and reserve player in the men's team- Gergely Szabo, whom we let to play only 1 game, in which he successfully made a draw vs the Ukraine's -Fedorchuk

     The tournament was won by the Azerbaijan team, followed by the French and Russian ones.
      I will stay home for now and learn for my partial exams at the University and try to pass them :D My next tournament will be the Romanian rapid, blitz and solving Women Championship, which will start at the beginning of December.

xoxo from Chisinau ;)

Poland-ETCC

     The European Team Championship will start in about a week in Warsaw.
     I like so much travelling around the World and playing chess tournaments! Can't wait for the Europeans to start!
     Our team is 10th out of 31 in the starting rating list.

1		Ukraine	2498
2		Russia	2491
3		Georgia	2491
4		Poland	2410
5		Germany	2390
6		Armenia	2386
7		France	2372
8		Hungary	2368
9		Spain	2367
10		Romania	2358

     As I said in so many posts- playing for a team is much more enjoyable for me than playing individual tournaments. It may be occured, but I feel less pressure when playing for a team and I also like this supporting spirit- in an individual championship, no matter if you are friends with someone or not- first of all- you are opponents and no one sincerely wants you to win- maybe that's the biggest difference- the real support and positive thoughts you get from your teammates in a team event.

      Our team has the same composition as in the last championships we had played:

1	IM	Foisor Cristina-Adela	2347	ROU	0.0
2	WGM	Bulmaga Irina	2399	ROU	0.0
3	WGM	L'ami Alina	2361	ROU	0.0
4	WGM	Cosma Elena-Luminita	2326	ROU	0.0
5	WGM	Voicu-Jagodzinsky Carmen	2275	ROU	0.0

Alina L'ami and Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky

Cristina Foisor, Luminita Cosma, Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky and me

Our captain- Gergely Szabo with Carmen and Alina

     Here is the official site of the event: http://etcc2013.com/ where you can follow the live games and the photo reports.

     We will stay in the center of Warsaw and I simply can't wait to explore it! I am really excited about everything :))) I will also celebrate my 20th birthday there! What can be better than that- I always prefer to celebrate it at tournaments than at home, because I have more friends in the "Chess World" than in the real one :P

Will keep you posted! 

xoxo from Chisinau ;)

Cristina Foisor in India

     A very interesting event is to start today, in Bhubaneswar- India.

     It is a 12 players, women's round robin- as you can see above a very strong one, with Elisabeth Paehtz, Elina Danielyan, Lilit Mkrtchian, Olga Girya, Qi Guo, Mary Ann Gomes, Eesha Karavade, Nisha Mohota, Rout Padmini, Swati Ghate, Kiran Manisha Mohanty. Our 1st board from the World Teams - Cristina Foisor is among the particiapants. Here's the official site of the event: http://odishachess.com/#

   

Cristina Foisor

       I wish Cristina the best of luck!

"The most peaceful team"

     Yet another 2-2... We fully deserve the nickname we've got in this tournament "The most peaceful team"- 2 losses and 5 draws out of 7 matches. What to say? We hoped to win today- but we were lucky to make an equal match- we had chances only to lose.
     I had an uneventful game- despite my big time advantage- I had to settle for a draw. I think I shouldn't have sacrificed the pawn...

     We wore the "Romania" t-shirts today, but it seems that nothing is enough in this tournament for us to win a match...

Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky vs Natacha Benmesbah

Collas Silvia vs Luminita Cosma

Gergely Szabo, Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky,me, Luminita Cosma and Cristina Foisor

Cristina Foisor,me,Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky and Luminita Cosma

     We play against Georgia tomorrow- again a difficult match.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

2-2, 2-2, 2-2

     Another 2 difficult days have passed. We made 2 equal matches, against India yesterday and Kazakhstan today. Though our opponents were lower ranked than us- every game was fought very hard.
     I scored my first win yesterday, against Nisha Mohota, with black, in a 5 hours game where she was the last to make a mistake.
     It's been a better day for me today, as I've played a nice game from the beginning to the very end. It's the first game in a long time that I'm happy about.
     Tomorrow is the 5th- last round before the free day, when we're going to have an excursion through Astana- I can't wait to see the city! We are going to play against Turkey- who has almost made a sensation today- the score was 2-1 for Ukraine and the only girl from the Turkish team who was still playing was completely winning, but Inna Gaponenko managed to save the game and the match.
     Here's my today's game:

     And here you can see some photos from the last 2 days:

Romania vs India

Cristina Foisor

Alina l'Ami

Luminita Cosma

Gergely Szabo, Cristina Foisor, Luminita Cosma and Alina l'Ami

My lucky ritual, listening to my favourite songs before the game, as electronic devices of any kind are not allowed in the playing hall- Gergely has to take my ipod to his room day by day-but what doesn't one do for luck!

Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky

What faces one can't make during a game! This is from the "still acceptable" ones, or maybe not :)))

     Keep your fingers crossed for us!

P.S. A big pictorial report is to follow after the free day!

2nd round

     We  had a good day yesterday- making an equal match against the favourite nr.1- Ukraine. All the games ended in a draw.
     I can't say that I was very satisfied with my game, as I didn't play precisely in the opening and my opponent never gave me even a "hint" for advantage. I went for an equal endgame which I thought was a bit better for me, but making an imprecise move, had to make a draw myself.
     Here's the interview I gave after the 1st round (the original is in Russian):

   

     Here's the English version:




Here are some photos from the yesterday's round:

Cristina Foisor made a draw against Katerina Lahno on the 1st board

Alina l'Ami and Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky

The team captain-Gergely Szabo and me

Luminita Cosma was the last to finish the game, holding a draw against Natalia Zhukova

Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky and me

R 2: Ukraine-Romania

Natalia Zhukova vs Luminita Cosma

     We play against India today- it won't be an easy match. I hope we'll do well!

Opening Ceremony

     The Women's World Team Chess Championship has officially started!
     We've attended the Opening Ceremony and it's been quite nice! Cristina picked the 2nd number for us- let's hope it will be a lucky one! We went for a festive dinner afterwards, followed by a team meating :)
     Here are some photos from the Opening Ceremony:

Our team: from left to right: Cristina Foisor, Alina l'Ami, me, Luminita Cosma, Gergely Szabo and Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky

The favourite nr.1: Ukraine

The favourite nr.3: Russia (and our opponent in the 1st round)

The Chinese team

The USA

India

France

Kazakhstan

Turkey

Kazakstan's Dinara Saduakassova receiving the WGM title from the FIDE president-Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

Gulishkan Nakhbayeva also received her WGM title

Local singers

From left to right: Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky, Alina l'Ami, Cristina Foisor, Luminita Cosma and me

     We play against Russia in the 1st round, with white on the 1st board. Here's their team composition:

1	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	2495	RUS
2	IM	Gunina Valentina	2505	RUS
3	WGM	Pogonina Natalija	2475	RUS
4	IM	Galliamova Alisa	2459	RUS
5	WGM	Girya Olga	2440	RUS

     The exact board order and the player who's going to rest in the 1st round is going to be known tomorrow morning, at 11 am. The round will be played at 3 pm and here's the official site, where you can follow the games and the live commentary: http://astana2013.fide.com/en/teams/78-live-games

Keep your fingers crossed for us!