Tuesday 4 September 2012

Olympiad Round 6 - Singapore pays the price for overpressing and goes down 3-1 to Turkey 2016 by Junior Tay

In team events, the tournament situation might dictate that one will choose continuations that one might normally not consider, even to the extent of taking unnecessarily or dubious risks in order to win. This is precisely the case yesterday with IMs Daniel Fernandez and Li Ruofan. They pressed on even with certain draws in the bag, overreached and had to concede defeat. But that's the nature of team events, where ELO points and personal ambition come in second to team requirements. Of course, kudos to the young CMs Darshan and Ali Marandi for outlasting our IMs to help Turkey 2016 to a 3-1 victory.

First off, Ravindran's Open Ruy Lopez variation was gunned down by an impressive piece of home preparation by FM Sanap who finished off the game incisively.

Heartbreaking losses for Li Ruofan and Daniel F. They played extremely well but so did their opponents who held steadfast as both Singaporeans overreached in trying to win.
And the team captain GM Zhang Zhong demonstrated the powerful and original ideas that a former Chinese, Asian and Corus B Champion possesses.
Meanwhile, Malaysian youngsters Yeoh Li Tian and Lim Zhuoren rose to the occasion to rescue Malaysia from defeat to Tunisia after IMs Mok Tze Meng and Lim Yee Weng were outplayed. Mok's TPR slips down to 2549 (which is still pretty impressive) and he will need to re-work his way into GM norm contention.

1 comment:

  1. Do you mean if had not overpressed, Singapore would not go down/lose?

    ReplyDelete