Olympiad Round 1 Review

Round 1 Review 

Round 1: Malaysia vs Holland. Photo from Kevin Goh's fb

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What more can I say? The standout results of the  first round of The 2012 Olympiad is  when the mighty Dutch concede 1.5 points to Malaysia . The Dutch decide to rest their top dog – Super GM - Anish Giri ( 2711) but still their line is so strong that before the game I thought that their interim board 1 - GM  Loek Van Wely (2691) can give a simul to all 4 player of the Malaysian team!

How wrong i was,  the Dutch board 1  lost to our hero - Mok Tze Meng while  Lim Zhuo Ren somehow draw  an inferior position against GM Daniel Stellwagen (2630).

GM Loek Van Wely 

 On board 2, IM Yee Weng had a difficult task against an experienced and strong GM – Ivan Sokolov (2696) and in the end, he was positionally outplayed in a rook and pawns endgame.

Our young hot shot – Li Tian play a good game against GM Jan Smeets (2620) on board 3. The results can go  either way  until a single decisive mistake on move 44…Bd6?? force him  to resign a few moves later.

On board 4, Lim Zhou Ren  had to surrender a piece for two pawns after some inaccuracies in the opening  . However, Daniel return the favor and let Zhou Ren earn few more pawns  and when Zhou Ren had 5 connected passed pawns on the king side, Daniel probably think that it is risky to play for a win. According to Zhuo Ren, after agreeing for a draw, Daniel left the board without taking the score sheet! Probably his still puzzle how he failed to convert to a full point.

MALAYSIA BOLEH!


Loek Van Wely's  photo is from the Olympiad 2012 official site.