33rd Chess Olympiad

The 33rd Chess Olympiad, organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open[1] and women's tournament, took place between September 26 and October 13, 1998, in Elista, Kalmykia, (Russia). In the open tournament there were 110 teams, and in the women's, 72 teams.

Contents

Chess City

The Olympiad was the first international chess event to be held at Chess City. Construction of Chess City was not complete by the start of the tournament, and some FIDE members were concerned that the facilities would not be ready in time, including the airport, telephone system, player housing, and the Chess Palace to be used as the main playing hall. Reported human rights abuses by Republic of Kalmykia President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov lead to calls for a boycott from Valery Borshchev, a deputy in the Duma from the Russian social-liberal party Yabloko. The British government did not call for a boycott but confirmed "reliable reports of human rights problems" and suggested that Kalmykian authorities might use publicity from Olympiad participation by foreign teams for its own purposes.[2]

The opening ceremony took place as scheduled, but the Chess Palace was covered in scaffolding and was missing many windows. The first round was delayed, one free day was eliminated, and the tournament was shortened to 13 rounds from the planned 14. The organizers worked around the clock and playing conditions improved as the tournament progressed, although the main playing hall was not properly heated. Living conditions, food and drink, and telephone service were generally reported to be acceptable.[3][4]

Chess competition

Both tournament sections were officiated by international arbiter Geurt Gijssen (NED). Teams were paired across the 13 rounds of competition according to the Swiss system (due to late start of the Olympiad the last round was cancelled); the open division was played over four boards per round, whilst the women's was played over three. The time control for each game permitted each player 100 minutes to make the first 40 of his or her moves, then additional 50 minutes to make the next 20 moves, then 10 minutes to finish the game, with an additional 30 seconds devolving on each player after each move, beginning with the first.

Open tournament

The open division was contested by 110 teams representing 106 nations and territories; Russia, as hosts, fielded four teams, whilst the International Braille Chess Association provided one squad.

Team results

The teams finishing first through third overall receive medals, as do those finishing in the top three amongst teams organized by seed; overall medal winners are not eligible to receive group prizes.

Top ten overall finishers
Place of finish[5] Team Players[6][7] Seed[8] Average July 1998 FIDE rating[9] Matches won Matches drawn Matches lost Total score[10]
First Russia A Peter Svidler, Sergei Rublevsky, Evgeny Bareev, Alexander Morozevich, Vadim Zvjaginsev, Konstantin Sakaev 1 2684 11 1 1 35½
Second United States of America Alex Yermolinsky, Alexander Shabalov, Yasser Seirawan, Boris Gulko, Nick De Firmian, Gregory Kaidanov 4 2631 8 4 1 34½
Third Ukraine Vasyl Ivanchuk, Alexander Onischuk, Oleg Romanishin, Vladimir Malaniuk, Stanislav Savchenko, Ruslan Ponomariov 3 2638 7 4 2 32½
Fourth Israel Boris Alterman, Ilia Smirin, Emil Sutovsky, Lev Psakhis, Yona Kosashvili, Boris Avrukh 12 2593 8 2 3 32½
Fifth People's Republic of China Peng Xiaomin, Ye Jiangchuan, IM[11] Zhang Zhong, FM[12] Yu Shaoteng, IM Wu Wenjin, FM Wang Rui 35 2498 8 3 2 31½
Sixth Germany Artur Yusupov, Rustem Dautov, Christopher Lutz, Robert Hübner, Christian Gabriel, Thomas Luther 7 2610 9 2 2 31½
Seventh Georgia Zurab Azmaiparashvili, Giorgi Giorgadze, Zurab Sturua, IM Giorgi Bagaturov, IM Khvicha Supatashvili, Lasha Janjgava 9 2601 6 3 4 31½
Eighth Russia B Alexey Dreev, Valery Filippov, IM Sergei Volkov, Mikhail Kobalia, Vasily Yemelin, Andrey Shariyazdanov 11 2594 6 4 3 31
Ninth Hungary Zoltán Almási, József Pintér, Csaba Horváth, Jozsef Horvath, Zoltán Varga, Zoltan Gyimesi 14 2588 7 2 4 31
Tenth Romania Andrei Istrăţescu, Mihail Marin, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Constantin Ionescu, Vladislav Nevednichy, IM Levente Vajda 22 2548 7 3 3 30½

Women's tournament

The women's division was contested by 72 teams representing 69 nations and territories; Armenia, as hosts, fielded three teams, whilst the International Braille Chess Association entered one squad.

References

  1. ^ Although commonly referred to as the men's division, this section is open to both male and female players.
  2. ^ Crowther, Mark (21 September 1998), THE WEEK IN CHESS 202:Olympiad News, London Chess Center, archived from the original on 20 July 2011, http://web.archive.org/web/20110720150607/http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic202#11 
  3. ^ Crowther, Mark (28 September 1998), THE WEEK IN CHESS 203: Olympiad News, London Chess Center, archived from the original on 20 July 2011, http://web.archive.org/web/20110720150616/http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic203#2 
  4. ^ Crowther, Mark (5 October 1998), THE WEEK IN CHESS 204: 33rd Olympiad, London Chess Center, archived from the original on 20 July 2011, http://web.archive.org/web/20110720150633/http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic204#2 
  5. ^ Where teams share the same total score, they are ordered by Buchholz tiebreak scores, calculated by summing the final scores of each opponent played by a given team. It was on the basis of a superior sum of opponents' scores, 394 to 379, that Ukraine claimed third place over Israel.
  6. ^ Players are ordered by board, from first to last, in the same fashion in which they principally played; the fifth and sixth players of each team may have played on higher boards during the Olympiad but played fewer games than the players who primarily occupied the positions.
  7. ^ All players are Grandmasters except where a note to the contrary is present.
  8. ^ Teams were initially seeded into the Olympiad on the basis of the average Elo rating of the top four players expected to compose each team; for example, the highest-seeded team, Russia, entered the tournament with an average FIDE rating of 2684, whilst the lowest-seeded team, United States Virgin Islands, fielded no players with international ratings (and was therefore assessed an average rating of 2000).
  9. ^ The ratings averaged are those of the top four players expected to compose each team.
  10. ^ In as much as the tournament consisted of 13 rounds, with four games played by each team per round, the maximum number of points one team could accumulate was 52.
  11. ^ IM denotes International Master.
  12. ^ FM denotes FIDE Master.

External links