Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018 Round Seven Press Report
Poland's men drew Azerbaijan so they are almost exactly tied for the lead. All four games were hard fought draws. This is another great accomplishment for Poland, because the Azerbaijan players out-rated them by a hundred points on almost every board.
The USA on board two beat Croatia 3-1. Not a great accomplishment as the team from Croatia was much lower rated, but this puts the USA team tied for the lead.
I would say that the USA woman's team are among the hardest working players. In every round, all four woman USA players are sitting at the chess boards studying their positions, when many other players have finished their games and left the playing area.
Sorry to have to bring this up, but the USA Board three woman player lost again, again to a player rated lower. She now has three losses and a draw. No wins. Why keep playing her when the USA has another player higher rated and ready to play?
The last game to finish in Round 7 was Italy vs. Nepal. The match seemed to be a draw as the Nepal player seemed to have a draw. They went around and around probably repeating positions until on move 136 suddenly the Nepal player blundered and lost.
However, this was still a good result for Nepal as all the Italy players were grandmasters rated over 2500. All the Nepal players were experts rated below 2100.
I wish Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had filed a federal court case in the USA to try to get sanctions against him lifted. We do not know what the accusations against him are. If it was just because Kirsan met with Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Gaddafi of Libya and
Bashar al-Assad of Syria that is certainly not enough especially since FIDE is a member of those countries. If it is something more, such as that Kirsan was engaging in prohibited transactions in oil with Iraq and Iran, the federal judge should be called
upon to rule on that. Can a sovereign nation be prohibited from selling its oil and natural resources? How else can the people of that nation get money to pay for food? I am famous for winning a case like this in the US Supreme Court. I filed the case
myself. Nobody thought I could win it, but I did. The case I won overturned a series of trading suspension orders that had been imposed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The new FIDE president may face this same problem again. I
would be happy to offer my advice.
Just between you and me, I walked around the Olympiad playing boards to see if I could recognize the same players I saw dancing at the Bermuda Party. One girl was especially a looker. She looks a lot different than at the party, but I am almost sure it
is the same girl. At the party she wore a scandalous red outfit with lipstick and makeup. Here she has no makeup on and is dressed conservatively. Hard to believe it is the same girl. At the Bermuda party she danced until almost 3:00 AM. Most of the
girls did not dance with a partner. They just danced alone. Of course, I am not naming any names.
The prize for the most unpronounceable names is won by the Mongolian girls team. They also have one of the most beautiful woman players, but I am not saying which one it is.
The men's team is difficult to pronounce too but we can sort-of pronounce them. The youngest player I could find is playing bottom board for Indonesian women. Her rating is 1805. She is 10. In America we have players aged 7 or 8 who can easily beat the players on bottom boards here.
Dr. Jana Bellin, Chairperson of the FIDE Medical Commission, is lurking about trying to spot players suitable for drug testing. Do not blame her. This is her job. She is a medical doctor who works in a hospital in England. FIDE is required to have drug
testing in order to try to qualify chess for the Sports Olympiads.
In all the years she had been doing this, she has yet to catch a single chess player taking a prohibited drug. Perhaps this is because there is no known drug that will improve play at the chess board. Jana is more famous for having been married to three
chess grandmasters, although not all at the same time. I asked her if she has caught any chess player taking prohibited drugs this time. She replied, “My Lips are sealed”.
I like the way it used to be. In the Good Old Days, the men's teams had four players plus two reserves. The women's teams had three players with one reserve. I do not know why they changed this. This enabled a team consisting entirely of the three Polgar
sisters to win the World Chess Olympiad in 1988, beating the entire Soviet Union. That can never happen again. The Ukrainian Team and the Russian Team each have had two sisters playing, but not three. El Salvador once had a team consisting entirely of
three brothers and they won the contra-Olympiad in Libya under Gaddafi, not the real Olympiad.
Just after I finished writing this, all three Polgar sisters appeared right in front of me to pose for a picture. They were not posing for me. They were posing for others. I had not seen them together in three decades, but I could still recognize them. I
had my camera and tried point and click but I doubt my pictures will come out. They are wearing spike heels now.
Sam Sloan

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