MARK RUBERY CHESS

44th Chess Olympiad, Chennai 2022

Round 2

South Africa 0,5 -3,5 Israel

GM K Solomon (2355) 0,5-0,5 GM A Boruchovsky (2551)

IM D Cawdery (2417) 0-1 GM T Nabaty (2631) FM D Barrish (2283) 0-1 GM I Smirin (2601) FM B Mhango (2238) 0-1 GM M Rodshtein (2596)

Ladies: South Africa 3-1 Malawi

Solomon held the balance in a game with a lot of manoeuvring to score the team’s only half point. Cawdery miscued in a sharp Grunfeld and lost quickly whilst Mhango shed a pawn early on and shared a similar fate. Barrish was a pawn up for much of the game and Smirin (a former 2700 player) was reduced to repeating moves before fortune favoured the Israeli allowing him to turn the tables after 82 moves.

In the first round the top board from Angola accepted an offer of a draw from one of the world’s elite players in what was a technically winning position for him.

Silva,david (2315) - Aronian,l (2775) [B51]

44th Olympiad 2022 Chennai IND (1.2), 29.07.2022

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Nd7 4.c3 Ngf6 5.Bd3 Ne5 6.Nxe5 dxe5 7.Bc2 g6 8.d3 Bg7 9.Be3 b6 10.0–0 0–0 11.h3 Ba6 12.Re1 Qd6 13.Na3 Rad8 14.Qf3 Nh5 15.Rad1 Bb7 16.Bb3 Kh8 17.Qg4 Qc6 (Preparing to optimistically sacrifice the exchange) 18.Bd5 Rxd5 19.exd5 Qxd5 20.f3 Qc6 21.Qc4 Qd6 22.Qa4 Qb8 23.b4 cxb4 24.Qxb4 Re8 25.c4 Nf6 26.Nb5 Nd7 27.a4 a5 28.Qb1 Kg8 29.Bf2 Bc6 30.Qb3 Nc5 31.Bxc5 bxc5 32.Qc2 Bd7 33.Rb1 Rc8 34.Qd2 Qb6 35.Rb3 Qd8 36.Reb1 Rb8 37.Qe3 e4 38.Qxe4 e6 39.Qf4 Be8 40.Kh1 h5 41.Qd6 Bf8

0,5-0,5

‘Granted converting the advantage is by no means trivial, as Aronian is an extremely tricky player, and he had the bishop pair.’ – Carlos Alberto Colodro

‘About ten years ago I was asked by one of the leading South African woman players whether I could recommend a few books to study. In return, I asked what tomes she already possessed. She answered, to my surprise, that her father had an ample library of around 500 volumes at home. I then suggested, perhaps a little undiplomatically, that she would benefit by reading some of them. My advice obviously did not go down well, because that was almost the last I heard from her… (Nigel Short, New In Chess 3/2012)