43rd World Chess Olympiad Guyana’s Men defeat Tanzania in Round 8 clash; Females lose to Kenya

Oct 04, 2018 Sports

Action at the 43rd World Chess Olympiad.

The Guyanese Men’s team won their Round 8 match-up against Tanzania, while the Female team lost their match to Kenya when the 43rd World Chess Olympiad continued in Batumi, Georgia on Tuesday.
WFM Maria Varona Thomas once more was the sole player to gain half of the designated 4 points per round, even though she was a lower rated player to Kenyan WCM J. Ndirangu, the local champion played along with the draw variation and settled for the half point.
Meanwhile, the younger and inexperienced WCM Sheriffa Ali, Nellisha Johnson and Sasha Shariff went down to their much higher rated opponents Wanjiru, Lucy (1475), Mwikali, D. (1481) and Mongeli, S. (1499) respectively.
First WCM Ali was checkmated beautifully with a pawn (33d5#) after leaving her King exposed in a critical Queen & Knight endgame. Nellisha’s miscalculated variation behind 25.bg5 resulted in her losing a piece then D. Mwikali made light work to convert her material advantage into a win.
Sasha Shariff was our last female player to go down fighting in a losing King & Pawns endgame where she was done 4 pawns against 6.
The Men’s team however salvaged some pride when they took a 3 – 1 win against the Tanzania team. Continuing to lead his home team, CM Anthony Drayton secured another win again playing the sharp Guicco Piano with the White pieces forcing his opponents to sac lower rated opponent CM Mdoe, Yusuf (1771) his Queen stop one Queen & Knight checkmating pattern but could not halt the other Knight from performing the same duties against the h7 focal point.
Taffin Khan’s final position was won on time however even though being a whole Rook up Taffin’s King was facing multiple checks while his opponent Njau, Albert (1716) King was in a stalemated position which would have made the result at least a draw but thanks to the 37th chess piece (time), Taffin took the additional 0.5 and the game.
Loris Nathoo traversing in rough waters so far at this 43rd World Chess Olympiad with a position where the evaluation state he was winning by 3.56 settled for a draw against the highest rated Tanzania chess player, Mlawa, Hemed (1828).
One would assume that taking into consideration Loris had 19 minutes 32 seconds to his opponent’s 1hr 01 min time on his clock this may have been his main reason behind accepting such draw by mutual agreement only on move 25.
If he had continued with Bxe5! and Qe7 this would have been more than enough to convert his superior position. To make sure Guyana secure the match win, Glenford Corlette with the Black pieces once again turned to his pet defence the Scandinavian however this time changing his position strategy by playing an early e4 and transposing a more solid Caro-Kann pawn structure.
At one point in the game, the higher rated Tanzania player CM Hassuji, N. (1766) was clearly winning but Glenford held on with an active Rook and Bishop to secure a half of a point. With three (3) more rounds to go the men team stands at position 139 with 8 points from 32 games while the women’s team stands at position 126 with 8 points from a similar amount of games.