Wales at the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad – August 2020 by Jason Garcia

Every 2 years FIDE organises a world team championship event and this was due to be played in August 2020 in Russia over a two and a half week period.  Unfortunately, due to Covid 19 this event was cancelled and instead FIDE organised an online event. This event was organised at very different time limit of 15 mins each plus 5 second increments for each game.  This was certainly a challenge for the players who are used to playing much longer time limits in such competitions.

163 countries entered this event and in July 2020 I had the surprise and honour to be invited to represent Wales for the first time.  I have always dreamt of representing my country and this invitation is certainly a highlight of my chess career.  Normally these events are separated into a Men’s, Women’s, Boy’s and Girl’ s events but FIDE decided to have one mixed team online event.  A squad of 11 players were selected including 4 men – Grzegorz Tocsek, Tim Kett, Jason Garcia and Bill Hewitt, 3 women – Olivia Smith, Kimberly Chong and Julie Wilson, 2 junior male players being Ifan Rathbone-Jones and Hugo Fowler and 2 junior females being Venetia Sivarajasingam and Shayanna Sivarajasingam.  It came as an even greater honour to be invited to captain the team and it did not take me long to accept this offer.

We were ranked 80^th of the 163 countries and were placed in Division 3 of the competition which started on Friday 7^th August 2020. The 50 teams in Division 3 were put into 5 groups of ten teams. 

We played 3 games each day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday against the other 9 countries being Jordan, Belgium, Malta, Iraq, Kosovo, Madagascar, Zambia, Lebanon and Thailand.  To progress to Division 2 we needed to finish in the top 3 teams in our section.

Each match included 6 players being 2 men, 2 women, 1 junior male and 1 junior female and they played against their equivalent from the other countries.  The pools were a straight forward league structure with 2 points for each match you win and 1 point for each match you draw.

As captain I had to quickly get up to speed on the technical requirements of the competition.  It can be so easy for a player to use a chess computer to tell them what moves to play in such a competition.  FIDE did all they could to avoid cheating. All games were played whilst on webcam and we were not allowed to have any books, papers or other electrical devices in the room whilst the match was being played.  We could not have our desk facing a window in case someone was outside the window giving us messages and we were not allowed to leave our desk whilst the game was ongoing.  No one was allowed to enter the room either and we were observed by an independent arbiter for the duration of the match.  After each game we had to make ourselves available to be interviewed by the arbiter if required to explain why we played certain moves. 

Some of the matches were commented on by Grandmasters on the Chess.com website which was a particular privelege for individuals.

 Round 1: Our first round match was against the second highest seeds in the division, Jordan, and they boasted 3 International Masters and 2 Women Fide Masters.  This was a tough start for us but Shayanna had a good win on board 6 and I was delighted to hold my International Master opponent to a 70 move draw after being a pawn down.  Final Score Jordan 4.5-Wales 1.5

 Round 2: Things did not get any easier in round 2 when we were paired with the top rated team Belgium.  This however was a much closer match than in round 1 and we could have sneaked a draw if a couple of things had gone our way.  Kimberly had a comfortable win against her opponent and Greg drew fairly easily with his FM opponent.  Venetia and Ifan unfortunately lost to leave us 3-1 down but Julie had winning chances and Bill had done brilliantly to fight back from a worse position to have winning chances.  Unfortunately, not knowing the match score Julie agreed a draw and Bill blundered with seconds left to leave the match score as Wales 2-4 Belgium.

 Round 3: Our third round opponent Malta were evenly rated to us and this proved to be the case in the match.  Hugo making his Olympiad debut had a dream start with an excellent win against his opponent.  Tim had a very tactical game which drew the attention of the grandmasters commenting on chess.com and he came out on top. 

Round 4: After a tough first day we started Saturday knowing we had to make some ground up on the group leaders and we could not have made a better start.  Olivia had not been available due to work commitments on Friday and we certainly missed her presence. She comfortably drew against her WFM opponent.  Shayanna continued her excellent run of form with another win on board 6 and Hugo held his higher rated opponent on board 5.  Greg showed how solid a player he was in holding his IM opponent to a draw.  I had a wild game against my FM opponent which could have gone either way but a rook sack to force a pawn to queen ended up being decisive.  A 3.5-2.5 and a great start to the day.

Round 5: Our game with Kosovo had an interesting start with their board 6 not joining the zoom call and they were defaulted.  Greg played a fantastic game as black in the Modern Benoni to beat his much higher rated IM opponent and Olivia showed her class in comfortably dispatching her opponent.  At this point we were 3-1 up.  Unfortunately, Bill blundered in a time scramble against his opponent and Julie not knowing the match score turned down a draw offer that would have won the match and went on to lose.  This game finished 3-3 but was one that got away from us really.

 Round 6: Our round 6 match was probably our most disappointing game of the event as Madagascar ended up losing every other match.  We certainly missed Greg playing in this game but with the instruction to share games out he had to miss some games.  Both Tim and I had difficult games on top two boards and Kimberly and Hugo had tough games on board 4 and board 5.  Venetia won on bottom board and Olivia continued her excellent performance level with another win but a 4-2 defeat was a disappointing way to end the day.

Round 7: Knowing we needed to win all our remaining games on Sunday to have any chance to finish in the top 3 we needed a strong performance against a much higher rated Zambia team with two International Masters and titled players on all of their other boards.  We unfortunately never looked like winning any of the boards and despite Greg continuing his unbeaten record and Kimberley and Shayanna battling to draws from worse positions a 4.5-1.5 defeat was a fair result.

 Round 8: We knew we now could not finish in the top 3 so the aim was to finish the event on a high and this started with a good win against Lebanon.  Bill played an excellent opening to reach a very strong position after 17 moves against his FM opponent.  With twelve minutes left on the clock his opponent either deliberately disconnected or had technical issues which resulted in his time running out and Bill winning.  Shayanna unfortunately lost her first game of the event but Greg finished his competition unbeaten on an excellent 3.5/6 with another draw against a higher ranked opponent.  Well done Greg. Venetia won another game on board 6 and Olivia continued her excellent form.  A 3.5-2.5 win was well deserved.

 Round 9: Our last round opponents Thailand were in third place in the group knowing they needed a win to guarantee promotion to the 2^nd Division.  We had other ideas than making this easy for them.  Tim on board 1 played a fantastic game which again was commented on by the GM’s on chess.com and a well deserved victory came Tim’s way.  Olivia won once again to finish the event with 4.5/6 and was so missed on day one.  Well done, Olivia!  Venetia finished the event really strongly on board 6 with a third win in a row.  I unfortunately blundered in time trouble and Hugo battled extremely hard against his higher rated opponent for over 80 moves and may have missed some drawing chances in a King, Knight and Pawn v King and Knight endgame.  Shayanna also had an excellent event only losing one game and this was despite being asked to play in some games as an adult and others as the junior female. Well done Shayanna! A 3.5-2.5 win was richly deserved and an excellent way to finish the event.

Final Table

Despite losing their last game to us, Thailand still managed to qualify with Belgium and Jordan for promotion to Division 2, as Zambia could only draw their last round game and missed out on leapfrogging Thailand by 0.5 a board point.  Overall, we all had highs and lows during the event but it was a fantastic experience and very well organised.  I can see FIDE organising other events in this way going forward.  We ended up finishing 6^th but that could have been higher had we won as we should against Kosovo and beaten the bottom ranked Madagascar as every other side did.  Particular congratulations go to Olivia, Greg and Shayanna for their brilliant achievements in this event. 

A number of us appeared on the chess.com coverage over the weekend and we even made a detailed report by Peter Sullivan on our participation at the Olympiad for the Chess in the Community project he is involved.  This report has been shared with all 33 prisons in the U.K. so we are individually now famous in the criminal world.  I would like to thank all the team for making my job so much easier over the weekend.