Friday, November 21, 2008

Historic Day for NZ Chess

Trans-Tasman rivalry took on an unexpected turn yesterday when New Zealand grabbed the baton for Olympiad bragging rights away from Australia. In what is perhaps their most significant round victory in Olympiad history, the Murray Chandler led Kiwis defeated the Bosnia Herzegovina team 2.5-1.5. Adding a little extra sweetener to their fine win, New Zealand’s rivals, Australia, were trounced by the powerhouse Bulgarians 0-4.

For New Zealand fans, here is a shot of that historic scoreboard.

The New Zealand scoreboard

The mood among the Aussie men last night was downbeat. It’s never nice to be beaten, even by a red hot opposition, but to be one-upped by the Kiwis is unsettling. After dinner, there wasn’t much to do but to strategise for the next round, which team they’ll play, who they’ll drop and so on. I turned up to the Maritim hoping to commiserate over a couple, but nope, up they went to their hotel rooms.

To make the day even worse for the Australian camp, the girls were also defeated 0-4 by the less fancied Venezuelans. Frankly, this was a surprising result. On paper our team outrated the Latinas on all four boards. Indeed, at least 2 Australian boards were winning!

Failing to have beers with the boys, I thought I’d try the girls. They’re always keen. But once again, I failed there, too. They’re all grounded, Moylan said. For Shannon Oliver, it’s a double whammy; she’s grounded until she wins a game!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done New Zealand! What a fantastic effort to beat chess mad Bosnia and Herzegovina! May be taking some point/s against Ukraine will be next big step for our Kiwi friends.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I thought New Zealand may have not such a good run missing two of there best players from the team - 9 times NZ Champ IM Ker and IM Puchen Wang.

But clearly with the Southern Hempisphere best player - GM Murray Chandler - the NZ Team is really doing well, the first time ever.

Now remember of course GM Chandler is the man with the 2 - 0 score against Kasparov himself !!!

rumour has it GM Chandler may win the Aussie Champs for a warm up to winning the upcoming Queenstown international tournament.

Chaos said...

rough luck mates!