Olympiad | Michael Adams

Tromso Medal!

Just after I booked my ticket for this event, the organisers threatened to cancel it; later FIDE officials were menacing the same. Although this was obviously ridiculous behaviour by both parties so close to the Olympiad, it did a good job of expectation management for the event. The proximity of the airport, and most accommodation…

Istanbul Olympiad

I was back in Turkey in time to re-use my visa from the team competition, this time for the Olympiad, held not far from the airport. The hotel and meals were quite good compared to recent editions, although the state of the hotel internet was a problem that was never fully resolved. The teams in…

Yet Another World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk

The rating lists used for the World Cup qualification were July 2010 and January 2011, so establishing whether or not one was qualified should be simple. However despite several requests for information FIDE treated this data as if it were nuclear arms codes and the players by rating and reserves were only confirmed on June…

Olympiad Blues

Moving onto the chess, I think that if you had told me beforehand that I would beat Magnus Carlsen and we would place ahead of two Russian teams I would have thought the event had gone fairly well! However, it didn’t really work out like that; I got the team off to a bad start…

Mammoth Effort

In general my impressions, aided by a large amount of ‘expectation management’ in the chess press before the event, were positive. The Olympic hotel had obviously only recently been constructed: the smell of solvents remaining pungent in the air. The builders had however done a good job, the rooms were well appointed and after a…