Today the men couldn’t hold up against the strong Italian team, but the big news was the win of the women over Egypt. Since the ambition of the teams is to be the first African team, it was an important match and the win will give them good chances to reach their ambition.
At board one against Italy Watu had to play the strong youngster Fabiano Caruna. The American Italian sacrificed a piece to get an attack, but discovered that it was not as strong as he thought. He declined repeating moves at first, but soon could’t avoid it. Watu could even have tried to play for more but after his experience against Nakamura he took the save option. Kenny played against the Benko gambit but soon lost his extra pawn, and another one. The endgame with opposite colored bishops might have been drawn, but it was difficult to defend and after a long struggle he lost. Henry played against a Trompovsky and got the two bishops in return for a weak pawn on f5. It was exchanged for a pawn on a2 after which the white position was better than he expected. It had too many weaknesses which he couldn’t defend. Daniel sacrifed a pawn against a Caro-Kann. He was still a pawn down in an endgame with rooks and opposite colored bishops, but had enough compensation to draw.
Replay the games
In the ladies match Anzel had an easy day. Her opponent blundered a piece in the opening, gave away another piece but kept on playing even with queen and three pieces against a lone knight, till she couldn’t avoid mate. Melissa won a pawn with black and gradually grinded her opponent down. Jenine with white got a endgame against WGM Mona which should have been ok for her. However, she got into an annoying pin and with little time on the clock the pinned piece got lost. Monique outplayed her opponent in the opening, but at the moment she could have gotten a winning advantage, she blundered an exchange. Instead her opponent only won a pawn and Monique started to outplay her opponent again. Alas an endgame with an extra pawn turned out to be drawn.
mooi! Ek hoop die dames druk deur! maar julle snoep ons met foto’s! Tjirts man! Ons sien so min van die spelers in die nuus/koerant-artikels…spoil ons nou so bietjie met meer foto’s!
Ek hoop dat julle ten minste in SA die koerante gaan warm maak dat hulle bietjie die Skaakspelers meer aandag gee en artikels oor hulle plaas, ek voel dis pateties hoeveel dekking hulle kry en ek blameer Chessa ook so bietjie, want waar is die publisiteitsspan. Wel, ek’s nie in SA nie, dus sal ek shut-up, maar ek soek my altyd morsdood na artikels oor ons spelers en kry net mooi niks of ‘n skrale ouerige beriggie! Jammer dat ek hier “gal afgaan”, maar ek voel ek’s nou op die “regte” plek om dit te doen. 
These Africans are Dangerous!
Ladies are doing it hey?! I’m very happy with the way things are going.
Just imagine if we had the GM training the olympiad squad earlier, funds available for our top players to attend tournaments overseas regularly… Let’s face it, the talent IS THERE.
Hopefuly the POWERS THAT BE will notice and reciprocate the players’ efforts.
Nikita has a point, though we shouldn’t ‘politic’ at times like these, more exposure of these kind of results on TV news, Radio, National newspapers would not hurt our cause.
Sometimes we (spectators) look at the final score and think that 3-1 vs Italy is a bad result. Given that we drew 2 games, it actually means that a win on any other board would have levelled the tie.
Super job guys. Soldier On!
hi Pops…it’s nothing to do with “politic”…it’s all about expose our players more and for the rest of the country…and world…to take notice of our players. You know, I’ve had Saffas on my blog asking me WHO are our best players! That already shows you…the people in SA DO NOT know them…they know all about the Bulls…(sometimes that’s all they know!) but, Chess is THE sport, even in rugby (don’t know in SA?) they use chess to teach the players how to attack! (that’s not first hand i’ve read…i only heard it via someone else on the Chess site where I play online…players that play rugby too). Chess should be more promoted in SA too… in the USA they play chess in schools…AND teachers in Canada ALL know how to play the game as they have to do chess in schools with the kiddies! only now they want to introduce it in Britain too..with the project of “Free chess sets to schools” read on the official site here..it’s still on their homepage…for months now…about 10 chess sets to all schools…but there’s buts…you have to read the “buts” in their forums…there’s sort of “discussion” on my blog about it too..but i’m out of it as i’m not sure if they’re going to achieve what they want in the way they want to do it..not on the long run.
Thanks! We have talent and the world should know it AND our players deserve the attention! Well done to all our players! I can say one thing, that our schools in SA (the schools that do something) def do a better job than schools in London when it comes to chess…I was really “shocked” when coming here to see /find that there’s “nothing” going on here. So you guys, keep going and play your best! Why not popping over for a game of chess here! LOL!
http://www.bcf.org.uk/
So, please, whoever is in charge of exposing our players, please get those people do their jobs or do a better job or appoint someone to do it…