Chessolympiad in Istanbul
20/09/2025I visited Istanbul back in 2002 when I was a member of Estonian team playing first board. This was second Olympiad in Istanbul and this time the premises were outside of the city next to airport. I was captain of Latvian women’s team and this made some confusion. There was strict rule that during the matches the captains should not face their team members. I got warning from one of the arbiters when I was following some games of Estonian women, because she logically assumed that I am captain of their team. Globalization in chess is very common but one can see that most of the older generation of Soviet chess school are captains or coaches around the World. My friends GM’s Kengis and Kveinis were present as well many others with whom I met over the chess board. Mikhail Gurevich for example was helping local youngsters. My team outperformed their ranking and I probably did a good job. Being captain you have the duty to be with your team during the round and you are the person to accept or refuse the draw offers. At the end of the match you sign the match protocol. During the match if you are nice person you bring some refreshments to your ladies. You should also register the team composition which was done over the internet. Preparation for the matches was new experience for me. I never worked with women chessplayers before. We had some brief two day consulting in Riga during the Riga international tournament in August. Main problem was to limit the opening lines during the prematch preparation. In other hand the amount of new information should be in certain amount for the player. It was overall interesting new experience for me. I am sure that in future if our cooperation is going to continue the Latvian team might expect much better results. One should see how Kveinis succeeded in Iran. After five years work with their women their team finished 8th in Istanbul. Kveinis definitely should be the coach of the year. Chess Olympiad is something between fun and serious sport. It is the place where saying ”gens una sumus” suites chess most.
