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Team Events Chess
Team
tournaments, like the olympiad, can be extremely interesting
for two reasons. First, the players fight with some kind of
patriotic zeal as they represent their countries. Second,
a team tournament allows them to absorb the pressure collectively.
Here the highly individualistic chess master is seen in the
role of a team member. National pride becomes an important
issue.
But things
have been diluted a bit since the break-up of the former Soviet
Union. There has been a chessic diaspora with the Soviet players
taking permanent residence in many countries. As the Soviet
Union was the biggest manufacturing plant of chess masters,
a large number of players were found moving out immediately
after the collapse of the monolith.
Today
quite a few European countries have players from the former
Soviet Union on regular boards. The transformation has been
so great that some of the players have changed their names
as well. For example, Alexander Nenashev, a grandmaster from
Uzbekistan, is playing the German first board with a new name!
GM Artur Yusupov and GM Dautov are also playing for Germany.
Latvian Grandmaster Alexi Shirov is playing for Spain, and
GM Tibiakov for Holland. So when Victor Korchnoi sought political
asylum in Switzerland in 1976, it was news. But now the exception
has become the rule!
As for
the American team, Russian players occupy much of the space
in it. And the same is true about the Israeli team.
The break-up
doesn't however help the other countries finish high in the
final list of standings. In 1978, Hungary won the olympiad
when the Soviets had the strongest team in the world. England
might have done it in Dubai but for an unexpected loss to
the Spaniards in a crucial match. The point was that they
had to fight against only one team, but now the situation
is different. All the components of the former Soviet Union
have very strong teams capable of playing for the top honours.
So in chess the disintegration of the socialist country has
not led to creation of a unipolar world. Rather, there are
too many superpowers in it today!
The following
game was played by IM Enamul Hossain Rajib, one of our leading
players, at the Bled Olympiad.
White-Enamul
Hossain
Black-Richard Forster [B90]
Bled, 2002
1.e4 c5
2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be7
8.f3 Be6 9.Qd2 00 10.000 Qc7 11.g4 Rc8 12.g5 Nh5 13.Kb1 Nd7
14.Qf2 b5 15.Nd5 Bxd5 16.exd5 Rcb8 17.Bh3 Nb6 18.Na5 Nf4 19.Bxf4
exf4 20.Rhg1 Re8 21.Qd4 g6 22.Rd3 Bf8 23.Qxf4 Bg7 24.Nc6 Re2
25.Rgd1 Nc4 26.Bf1 Rf2 27.Qh4 Qb6 28.Nd4 Bxd4 29.Rxd4 Ne3
30.Qxf2 Nxd1 31.Qd2 Re8 32.c3 Ne3 33.Bd3 a5 34.a3 Qc5 35.Qe2
Re5 36.Re4 b4 37.axb4 axb4 38.cxb4 Qb6 39.Rxe5 dxe5 40.Be4
Kf8 41.Qd3 Ke7 42.d6+ Kd7 43.b5 Qc5 44.Qc3 Nc4 45.Bd3 Qg1+
46.Ka2 Qa7+ 47.Kb3 Na5+ 48.Kb4 Kxd6 49.Be4 Qb6 50.Qa3 Ke6
51.Qxa5 Qd6+ 52.Kb3 Qd1+ 53.Ka2 1-0
Position
after 19.Bxf4
-PATZER
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(R) thedailystar.net 2004
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