Rhodos Word Senior’s Team Championship

In April the Word Senior’s team competition took place in Rhodos island in Greece.

It was my second time to participate in this kind of event. Last year it was held in Dresden and our US team was somehow the lucky winner. We needed some luck in the last round. This time the US team did not give other teams any chance and we took the gold winning eight matches and only drawing against Iceland.

There was two age groups, over 50 and over 65. Our team members were nearly the same as a year ago. Only Kudrin was replaced with Novikov. Only true American again was Joel Benjamin. Our international team had a good team spirit and wonderful leader Alexander Shabalov who like a year ago took individual gold on the first board.

My performance was not so bright, but I had also some moments. In our match against Iceland my victory helped to draw the match. Actually I won rather quickly and we never were in any danger to lose the match. At the very end Novikov lost to Hjartarson and this helped Vikings to level the match. I lost few half points in the matches with Italy and Armenia when I agreed a draw in the winning positions to secure the overall victory in the matches. My rating performance gave me the bronze medal on my board.

Shabalov played on the first board, Benjamin on the second, Novikov on the third and I on the fourth board. Yermolinsky was our reserve player. He like Shabalov took the individual gold as well.

The Rhodos is famous tourist destination. In April as our taxi driver explained it is still winter. The winter temperature was around plus 18 and it was sunny. However the official tourist season started when we were leaving on April 16. Still we could play some tennis and Shabalov with his special equipment managed to swim on the open sea as well. There was only problem the food. We stayed in the luxurious Olympic Palace hotel and the food was excellent and also unlimited, so for some players it was difficult not to gain some weight.

The tournament saw much stronger competition compared to the last year. Icelandic team was very strong. They however missed the place in the podium losing the last match to Israel. Petursson lost in few moves in equal position when the draw was enough to take the bronze for the team.

Armenia had also a strong team having Rafael Vaganian on the first board. They also had very bad performance in the last round where they lost to the Italian team. The Italian team was the big underdog who took the second place. Third place went to Israel who took down the Iceland team in the last round with some luck. Final standings.

The games

The Margeir’s tragedy.

My game against Emms was not really a tragedy, but just unpleasant accident.

I had my chance against Iceland to make me also valuable player for the team.

Against Armenia it was Shabalov who clinched the important win.

In the match against Armenia our winning margin was minimal, but some positions we just did not finish.

In overall I am very pleased to be the two times World Champion. I actually was a team member of the Soviet team winning the 1989 World team Championship in Luzern.

I like to thank here all my team members for a good team spirit and cooperation.

Jaan Ehlvest