Work on the Istanbul 2000 Olympiad Monograph Nearing Completion

The Great Book of Chess Olympiads

XXXIV Chess Olympiad – Istanbul 2000

Edition 1

Completed 14/16 of the work.

Number of pages: 1985.

Number of games: 3776.

1863

Round report:

Poland (average rating in this match 2545) drew with India (2538). Markowski 2568, who in the absence of Krasenkow became the team leader, lost to the young but already strong Sasikiran, and the match was leveled by Kempinski 2522, who inflicted grandmaster Barua’s 2513 first defeat. Before the final round, the Polish team’s tally was far from impressive: Michal Krasenkow, absent in this round, had 3/8, Tomasz Markowski 4/10, Bartlomiej Macieja 5/9, Bartosz Socko 8/10, Robert Kempinski 6.5/9, and Pawel Blehm, more often present as a spectator than a player, 3.5/6. Only Socko and Kempinski were impressive – although in the final round Kempinski added another win, Socko suffered his only defeat.

In this round (the penultimate one), there were numerous draws before move 15 (e.g. the entire Russia vs. England match), as there was no rule yet prohibiting draw agreements before move 30.

Before the final round, Russia led with 36.0 points, ahead of Germany 34.5, Hungary 33.5, Ukraine 32.5, Georgia 32.0, Israel and England with 31.5 each. Poland occupied 21st place with 30.0 points.

Coming soon to our shop https://olympchess.com/ – a new and completely revised edition of the 1st Olympiad in London 1927. The monograph will have 300% (!) more content than the first edition. Budapest 2024 is already available. Work on Istanbul 2000 is nearing completion.