We beat Russia at chess!!! After beating USA at Basketball there is only Brazil at football remaining... lol

@ ebutaljib.
Yes Mamedyarov played on board 3 in the 2nd round of the World Team Championship. Reason: At the European Team Championship, he requested that he play on a 'low' board with the idea that his team would be thus be more likely to pick up points there. His strategy worked and Azerbaijan won that tournament. It seems that his team is using the same strategy here. I must say it makes sense in that his 2741 rating makes it extremely likely he will win (or at least draw if things don't go well!) against any 2600 player. Of course it is not an ideal way for him to pick up rating points for wins, but he did increase his rating by 20 points in the last few months, although he did have a number of wins against 2700 players in 2009 too.

On another point, thanks to Peter Doggers for all the hard work in 2009 in cementing the superior quality of Chessvibes.

Wow we won Russia go Greece
Morozevich-Papaioannou 0-1 in 25 moves very nice game !!!

Morozevich 2732 - Papaioannou 2625, Bursa 2010 (English, A17)
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. g4 O-O 5. g5 Ne8 6. Rg1 d5 7. Qb3 c5 8. cxd5 Nd6 9. Bh3 Na6 10. g6 c4 11. gxh7+ Kh8 12. Qc2 exd5 13. Bxc8 Rxc8 14. Nxd5 Re8 15. Kf1 Ne4 16. Ne3 Qd7 17. Ng5 Nac5 18. Qxc4 Nxg5 19. Rxg5 Ne4 20. Qb5 Rc6 21. Rf5 Nd6 22. Qd3 Rxe3 23. dxe3 Qxf5 24. a3 Qh3+ 25. Kg1 Nf5 0-1.

Moro went today with one of his specialities: a crazy, speculative flank attack without enough development. Papaioannou only applied some basic chess principles (center counter attack) and the rest was humiliation...
Despite how brilliant Morozevich is and can be, today he deserved another nickname: Moron...

@ ebutaljib and silvakov : The strategy I indicated above (whereby Mamedyarov plays board 4, two boards below that which his rating would deem appropriate) resulted in his third win in a row today. However, his team lost to India because Guseinov lost on Board 3 to Ganguly, and the normally unflappable Gashimov lost too on Board 1, to Sasikiran :-(

Nice report but why there are no photos?

I'm glad you gave the qualifying information for this event, as it does seem strange ( and not only to me -see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/chess/6937578/All-to-play-for-at-Hast... -last paragraph ).

It also seems a bit pointless calling it a "World" Team Championship since a third of the teams are there by invitation, and clearly will just "make up the numbers".

Simply looking at the ratings shows that countries such as Greece and Turkey will be totally outclassed by the likes of the USA and Russia : their top boards would barely make the latter's lowest.

Its a bit like the baseball "World Series", which, despite its name, is focused solely on the US,. This World Team Championship will have little relevance to world chess.

Personally, I think the Olympiad is the best arbiter of "World Chess Country Standings" and that has already taken place in a wonderful tournament in Dresden last year.

We've asked the permission to use photos from the official website and we're awaiting a response. I must say that the quality so far hasn't been great so don't expect too much.

The World Team Championship was never a Swiss event, always a round-robin - this is from the Olimpbase section "World Team Championship history":
"Due to instability of the results produced by the Swiss system adopted at the Olympiads the World Team Championship was scheduled to be an invitational round robin event. Only ten teams qualify ..."

What unclear restrictions? It is absolutely clear that 10 months have to pass before a player can represent the new federation in FIDE events.
http://ratings.fide.com/fedchange.phtml

Karjakin applied for a transfer on December 2nd 2009, meaning that he can represent Russia in FIDE event from October 2nd 2010 onwards.
http://ratings.fide.com/fedchange.phtml?year=2009
So, sorry, Sergey - no Olympiad for you this year. Everything is crystal clear, so I don't really understand your comments about unclear rules and you hoping to represent Russia in this years olympiad. I'm starting to believe that chess players are illiterate :)

For the same reason Ivan Sokolov who applied a transfer from Dutch back to his native Bosnian federation in March, still had to play the World Cup under the Dutch flag! He can only represent Bosnia from January 1st onwards!

Everything is crystal clear. One only has to read.

"It also seems a bit pointless calling it a “World” Team Championship since a third of the teams are there by invitation"

2 out of 10 is not one third ;)

Only Greece and Azerbaijan are invitees (you don't really expect a team tournament without a host country do you?) and of all the teams in the world who werent' already qualified Azerbaijan is absolutely the most logical choice (the hottest team at the moment and probable winners). Only Greece is debatable, and is more political choice than a sporting one.

All other teams qualified either by contitnetal championship or olympiad.

Greece is the only debatable team, everything else is simple exagerations or ignorance.

@ebutaljib (and Peter Doggers and FIDE): I would say Karjakin's case is at least unclear after all - you didn't read far enough in the first link you provided:

"5. a transferred player with dual citizenship (including the country of the new federation) who did not represent the former federation in a FIDE event during the preceding year, is eligible to represent the new federation right after the transfer Without Fee.

6. a transferred player with dual citizenship who participates in FIDE events under the former federation during the preceding year is required to pay the respective Fee."

According to your second link, Karjakin has dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship, so what exactly is the problem? Was Russia unwilling or unable to pay the required fee?

5. can't apply because Karjakin represented Ukraine in FIDE events in 2009.

6. only talks about the fee, but it does not say that he can represent new federation right after transfer (as is explicitly stated in 5.) So I think 10 months still apply.

By the way under the new regulations that will take efffect July 1st 2010, Russian federation would have to pay 50.000 € fee for Karjakin :)
http://www.fide.com/images/stories/news2009/2010_reg_transfers__eligibil...

Basically what 6. says is, that a dual citizen who represented one federation in the preceding year, is equal to any other player who transfered from one federation to the other. Fee must be payed, and 10 months have to pass before he can represent the new federation.

I think this is the only thing 6. says.

this Team event doesn't look too important

i think the olympiad is much more prestigious

"A bit of a strange event", I would say: "An extremely strange event" with a strange invitation policy. Loek van Wely's comment speaks for itself.
But of course it's always nice to witness clashes between the ex-Soviet-republics, including Israel and the USA in this case :)!

Very nice report! Thanks chessvibes.

Not too important, not to important,...

It's something like the Confederations Cup in football, where all six continental champions, plus world champions, plus host nation meet. It's nothing like World Cup, but I still wouldn't say it is not an important event.

Look at ti this way, it's much easier to win World Team Chess Championship/FIFA Confederations Cup than Chess Olympiad/FIFA World Cup, but it is much harder to qualify for World Team Chess Championship/FIFA Confederations Cup than it is to qualify for FIFA World Cup (everybody can participate in Chess Olympiad :)) You have to be Continental Champion or be top in Olympiad to qualify for it ;)

The way I interpret the FIDE regulations, 1.-4. handle general cases, and 5.-6. the specific cases of players with dual citizenship - hence 5. (being immediately eligible for the new federation) would also apply to 6. if a fee is paid. I agree this is ambiguous, but at the very least, this - rather than Karjakin being illiterate - caused the confusion. And as Karjakin was part of the Russian team lineup for quite some time (removed and replaced by Jakovenko only a week or so before the event), things didn't seem to be "crystal clear" - or was the rule only strictly enforced when another "unknown" federation filed a protest?

Another issue: Why did Karjakin apply for a federation change only in December, given that he announced his intentions in spring last year, and Dokhoian was already his second at one of the GP events?

And were the new regulations a reaction to Karjakin's case? BTW, if Ukraine loses another top player, the money may go straight to FIDE - as Ukraine hasn't paid their membership dues, hence their players are currently given as "not rated" on the FIDE list ... .

We might also compare the World Team Championship to the FIFA World Cup: For both events one has to qualify, both have participants from all continents, thus unavoidably some stronger and some weaker teams. But there is no such thing as a football olympiad, actually why not? The Swiss system could also be applied to football but - to my knowledge - it only exists in chess, not in any other sports.
The only issue, and the only difference are the wildcards, particularly the one given to Greece. Actually this is a fairly recent "idea" for this tournament: In the first editions, the first six of the Olympiad qualified. Then they invited the women's world team champion. Then they started giving wildcards, which in 2001 (for whichever reason) went to Iran and FYR Macedonia.

@Thomas you talk WAY TO MUCH.
Everyone agrees with, get back in your box and keep your nonsense to yourself and your bedroom mirror.
We are not interested.

ceann, you talk very little, but still way too much :)

I admit that 5. and 6. could couse confusion, but my interpretation is that 6. equalises dual citizen players with single citizen players, provided that they participated in FIDE event in the past year. If you represented some country in the past year in official event, then it doesn't really matter if you have nother citizenship or not. Thats what 6. say, IMHO.

@Thomas

I'm not having much time these days, but thx for the informations you gave in other topic (though I think there is some minor inaccuracy).
As for the Swiss, I think other sports use it, I don't remember which.
And yes, football (and others) should use it too (provided it is indeed a Swiss (enough rounds, etc., and not merely something called "Swiss").

@Nick

Greece 2.5 - 1.5 Russia ;)

And Greece beat 2.5-1.5 Russia

Aronian - Gelfand -> very entertaining

I hate when players in sports change the federations and 10 months ineligibility is a very short amount of time. It would be ridiculous if a player could play for one team in October and for another team in January since it is not a club competition. In other sports transfer restrictions are much tighter.

I am a fan of Russian team but I will not salute them if Karjakin played for them instead of native players. Native Russians shouldn't be very happy since Karjakin could be their competitor for a place in national team.

Go Russia, Go Russia!

Did Mamedyarov play on board 3 in 2nd round? Shouldn't he be on board 2 if they rested Radjabov???

Nick - I thought like you did about the baseball "World Series" until I discovered that the competition's predecessor was originally sponsored by a New York paper called "The World".

@erevnitis Wasn't beating Portugal enough?? ;-)

@Peter Doggers I guess this is a compromise we have to make, they speak the same language after all.

@erevnitis
Brazil beat Portugal 6 to 2 in the last "friendly" match, and miracles like EC 2004 don´t repeat themselves so often, I think.
But it's nice to dream of course :)

Well, I guess I'm not being totally fair with Papaioannou; his conduction was very nice and energic, he deserves full credit by refuting Moro's play...

The organization of this tournament should hire some journalists who speak basic English. The on-line bulletin after the second round is "slightly embarrassing" (quoting Carlsen after he missed a win against Howell in London).

MamedyarovFan, you are missing the point. They can order the players anyway they want BEFORE the tournament start, but once that order is selected they have to play by it.

Official site gives the following board order
1. Gashimov
2. Radjabov
3. Mamedyarov
etc.

If Radjabov doesn't play (like he didn't in round 2) Mamedyarov automatically has to play on board 2! But he didn't.

ebutaljib, Mamedyarov is listed as n.4, check the official website, players list...

Not if you look here ;)
http://wtcc2009.tsf.org.tr/content/view/21/1/lang,turkish/

Obviously this
http://wtcc2009.tsf.org.tr/component/option,com_turnuva/task,show/dosya,...
is the correct list.

I always just clicked the flags on the top, and the board orders there are simply wrong.

That was never an issue. They can put him as 2nd reserve if they want to. The problem was and still is that offcial site has two board orders. And I was just looking at the one that is apparently wrong (the one that you get by clicking on the flags)

@ ebutaljib: I think the official site is poor overall ... in addition to the error you noted in board order, I agree with Peter Doggers above that the photos, videos etc. are not great. At least there are some exciting games though.