Uganda’s Kawuma scores 9/10!
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Moses Kawuma (near right) playing against British Virgin Island’s Christopher Art. Kawuma scored 9/10 for the highest winning percentage in the open section. Steven Kawuma plays the legendary Bill Hook. Photo by Daaim Shabazz.
Moses Kawuma and brother Steven came to the Olympiad with high hopes. Those hopes were dashed at the outset when visa troubles caused the Ugandan team to forfeit two boards for nearly the entire tournament. Harold Wanyama made an impassioned appeal to the organizing committee to send documentation for visa. Those answers were untimely. Shadrack Kantinti showed up in the 10th round and won his last two games.
Despite the constant forfeits, both Kawuma brothers made a valiant stand (as did Zambia) to hold the two boards. Moses ended the tournament on 9/10 which constituted the highest winning percentage in the open section. Martha Fierro scored 93.8% for Ecuador in the women’s section. This year, medals were awarded on the basis of performance rating which rewards players for the strength of their competition. In a sense, it is biased toward those playing on the strongest teams.
This criteria seems to be counter to the Olympiad spirit. You have an individual in Kawuma who scores 9/10 and gets no recognition for his performance. Peter Leko of Hungary scored 7.5/10 with a high performance of 2833. One may argue that awards should be given to those who scored well against the strongest field, but these results are not out of the ordinary for strong GMs. It is even possible to have a mediocre score and have a high performance rating. Peter Svidler had 4.5/9 and a 2651 performance.
Hypothetically, what about an unknown player from Maldives, Comoros or Equatorial Guinea who scores 11/11?? They get nothing and we may not remember their performance in coming years. However, most will remember Robert Gwaze’s 9/9 performance in the 2002 Bled Olympiad. These awards may represent a total celebration of chess and its universal appeal. Certainly Leko is a great player, but what residual benefits does chess get as a result of him winning that medal? Probably zero. What would the medal have done for Kawuma, Uganda, Africa and the universal appeal of chess? Probably quite a bit.
It is understood that the rule change was designed to prevent players from “stacking boards” or having their strongest player on the lower boards to win a medal, but even if a weaker federation has their boards in the right order, there is still no chance to win a medal based on performance since they will not play the strongest competition. In addition, board stacking in general doesn’t work. Alexander Morozevich of Russia is rated 2787 on board #4 and yet he could only muster 6/9.
It appears as if there should be separate awards for categories (as it is for team results), or to use another criteria. In the premier team tournament which prides itself on “Gens Uma Suna,” the current format does not appear to be inclusive of the effort and results of smaller federations.
Great score 9/10 and no recognition! Theses people are hard to believe, well, its nice to see African chess players rising to the highest levels in chess.
Daaim – I agree with you that not giving prizes for top board scores is inconsistent with the spirit of the Olympiad. Why not give awards for “Top board 2 performance rating” and for “Top board 2 score” ?
Its sad that wen someone gets those many points they are not recognized. There shud be different categories for different kind of winners. just like they give different zone winners at the olympiads otherwise motivation will be low for countries such as Uganda.
In addition we(Uganda team) hope to be there in numbers come the next olympiad.
You make an interesting point. Two different prizes, one for rating and one for percentage, would indeed be better.
I strongly think a petition (signed by all) should be written to fide to revert their decision of awarding medals at the Olympiad based on performance and not based on percentage, because it would not help develop chess in Africa instead it would kill it. This system only favors strong Teams. Consider someone that is a IM playing for a country where his other team mates are very weak. even if he ends up with a perfect score, he would not get a medal.
Africa has very few chess tournaments where one can get norms as compared to other part of the world. why take part in an Olympiad when even after scoring a perfect score you cannot get a medal. It has totally killed the spirit of the chess Olympiad.
I predict Most African Team would not want to participate in the next Olympiad and the turn out at the event would be low.
Instead I would suggest to Fide to make the Chess Olympiad an Open Swiss format tournament, while still awarding medals to individual board and adding up the scores of each player in the Team to award Team medal. The top winners can also be selected for the World chess cup .That way would be a fairer option because it would not give room for team to field their strong players in lower board , This would give everyone a fair chance to meet GMs,IMs etc and increase the possibilities of acquiring norms and titles. I rest my case
Choice is a matter of style Daaim.Daaim do you also realize a Svidler has to play well to achieve that perfomance??It could easily have been very low ,do the maths and find out what TPR he could get on 10 percent or so. Equalizing with black against a 2600+ player aint easy at all ,not mentioning a white win which in most cases requires a lot of preparation.Nyway I am glad FIDE has seen sense in my method and won’t be bothering themselves again with percentages that mean nothing.
hi. so i’ve noticed and so did most of you you that a certain someone needs to look himself in the mirror. yes, darren live your life, i don’t remember the last time anyone heard of a darren participating in any tournament, albeit a pub championship. gracius.
Daaim a 9/10 would not happen anyway if a team is medal material .Yes Svidler played below his rating but its still a decent result.In TEAM tournaments we have to consider TPR to guard against teams for board prizes .
its difficult to play for a win as black if white is satisfied with a draw(there are many lines where white can go for a straight draw in most openings like Caro Kann ,French ,Petroff etc,)that is why you see few black wins in top level chess.In a strong players match situation ,u need to push for a win a white that is why black can get chances if you overreach.
To that imposter calling himself “”darrenliveyourlifeporter”” ,Duppy know ah who fi frighten,friendship mi nuh buy,Jah kno star, weh dem ah try???Shell down di place if yuh waan step to me yeah.
Daaim i quote you “not because he played strong players and had a mediocre score like Svidler” -u acknowledge Svidler played strong players and its difficult to win against strong players naturally let alone draw.
“Anand was not playing for a draw”-i will quote Adolf Hitler on this one “The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”
Talk about Kasparov ,I am not sure u know one of the reasons why Moscow 1984-85 was halted at one point ,Draws and Draws .Kasparov also had problems when players went for a straight draw see Vallejo Pons v Kasparov 2004.06.10 and Azarov v Kasparov 2004.10.03 Identical games ,u cant tell me Azarov was playin for a win when he fully knew the game ends in a draw.
Daaim i quote “”On Garry Kasparov, you’re cherry-picking a few games to demonstrate Kasparov played for black draws as a policy”” is a whole marathon match against Karpov a few games??
In Fischer’s/Petrosian’s time computers weren’t so good ,he would not dream anything near that these days.
If you think its easy to get draws on blackside of +2600s you are living on another planet.
Dear all
I am impressed by the dialogue especially when there is a difference of opinion. This site is quickly becoming a great source of notable and finger-tip chess info.
Guys, I am privy to how corrupt some elements and operations within Fide is. The skulduggery in overt in many instances and we all are to be ashamed of this for we ignore the human reaction of condemnation, or at worst speak out! It is my opinion that we tend to blog about some irrelevant matters and some that are dilusion of grandeur. For instance who wants to argue the value of Svidler’s perfomance rating versus a deserving African board medal? The incumbent top GM would not want an accolade deserving to an African. He is a lovely human being who when I had a chat to “wish Africa can produce top GM’s”. By the way he loves cricket and astonished me with the deep knowledge of the game!
The problem is Fide officials and especially Africans in that body serving their personal interests. From the head of a federation who see the excursion as an overseas trip to top ranking so called Continental presidents and Vice-Fide Presidents. Why did they allow this nonsensicaL DECISION pass without veto? someone correctly assessed that Africa will no longer see the need to partake in future Olympiads! this will be sad.
I am very disapointed that Zambia (ZCF) did not plan a final push for Amon to obtain his GM tittle.
Hope to hear from others on these matters!
Greetings brothers it seems theses different organizations arent interested in the african chess so perhaps this gives us the best time to strike.Im not sure which african brother had the chance to beat Svidler but they have this chessbase program with a lot of his games there, so its fairly easy to prepare and induce him into dubious lines when he has white to crush him! They have this white is winning attitude which is a clear weakness that can be used against them, also, their organizations gave them big ratings to protect so we as “little people” can steer towards equal positions and watch them disintergrate inside their own european superiority complex.Ive seen this guy nige short blunder whole rooks in tournaments with that kinda attitude.I just read on chessbase something happened to Ivanchuck and he walked away from one of their test they setup for him with the “im white and right mentallity.” So theres a glaring weakness which we can expose during games with them regardless of titles and ratings they have been given by their federations.I believe in Obama and he advocates moving forward and not dwelling on past injustices although they do have to be addressed,McCain tried some of theses “white tricks” during his campain and the young americans (under30) are no longer falling for theses ancient ideas so it seems America is good and we as human race progess. Peace.
Hi Everyone,
As one of the fathers of Botswana Chess and a Zonal President of Southern Africa and then later the International Director of the ECF I do feel qualified to make an opinion. Firstly it is asking a lot of a chess federation in western europe to guarantee visas for everyone. At the moment western europe is a bit of a fortress trying to keep out people and their respective governments are not going to make exceptions for chess. In the UK our foreign Minister when on a visit to South Africa and talking on the Zimbabwe issue quoted that the UK had 700,000 zimbabweans in the UK. That is a seriously large figure when you think how far apart the two countries are. It has also skewed the issues for visas for all Africans coming to Europe. Also from the African Federation point of view I only hope that the respective Federations planned very well in advance for visas because what I heard on the ground was that some applied only in the month before the Olympiad. If this was the case then lets not blame the Germans. I do think that there is a case for two sets of board prizes as winning a board prize is very important for chess development. I will certainly be using my powers and contacts to argue for this. Also no one understands how diffiucult it is for a small federation then Nigel Freeman. What Nigel wants more then anyone is for Federations to be seen to help themselves. I am too saddened when a Federation says that it cant even pay an annual fee to FIDE or to be able to organise its team to an Olympiad. Lets be better then everyone else. Rupert
Well ok rupert theses things u speak of are also of the past , so we would like people to know that our African brothers are seeking international justice right across the board. It seems when it comes to us there are many excuses in place.We are in the process of change,our ideas, thoughts and concerns will be handed in wrirting to President Obama himself in order to rectify some of theses unfair acts.Know that we are not merely here to blog for the sole purpose of blogging. We seek equal rights both on and off the chess board and are no longer interested in the eurocentric perspective of chess it hasnt done our African people any good, particularly with white moving firsr every game, this will be the first injustice we will deal with, and if they wanna play chess they can line as many eurocentric thinking individuals as they like.
Hi Daaim (I am not sure which comments section this belongs in),
Many thanks for pointing me in the right direction. It would have been good to talk more with you as I think your website is excellent and one of the few places that connects African countries together. Yes this is what I could not find. I was at a family birthday party when writing the above so it sort of got cut short.
Re 2012 the Olympics is just so much bigger and comes with complete government support; and is certainly one of the conditions of winning the bid. I dont think it can be compared to chess. The other thing to note is that I organised Botswana’s participation in 5 olympiads so I know how difficult visa issues are, and things were easier 10 years ago. All I know is that it took me the best of of a year to organise everything from a team selection process to organising the airtickets, budgets to the sports council, leave permission from employees for players and booking the airline tickets. Sometimes even helping players get passports.
I also find the fortress Europe thing very unsettling; In my non chess life my work brings me into contact with a lot of southern africa migrants a lot of them in very long term fights against the establishment who are trying to deport them and it is very nasty.
Also in defence of Nigel Freeman. I wrote the minutes for the CACDEC meeting where Campo in response to one Federation asking for clemency re fees talked on about the hard work needed to get a federation established and he used his own example from the Phillipines in the 1950s and 60’s. Nigel was just repeating this in the African meeting though he will no doubt write his own response. All that i want to say is the Nigel is on the small countries side; he knows what the problems are like and this is why he does sometimes come over as playing hard ball esp on the subject of annual fees. Personally I dont think it is beyond any Federation to pay 400 euros a year esp as this all comes back and more in assistance. Each Federation should have a Committee charge membership fees organise a few tournaments and charge entry fees, as well as get a schools programme going. Also if you get schools going they then also join and pay subs and later on purchase things like chess sets etc.
Have to go. However there is more debate to come esp on the issue of bad rules; I was next door to the Gabon incident (and let us not forget Malawi) in the last round and I thought that it very nearly brought our sport into disrepute. The zeo time allowance for turning up has to be fought. And on the positve side players finally won back a decent time schedule and I think the no draw offer rule also worked well.
Rupert
The visa thing is a big issue and is not going to go away. Just to get a relative or a friend to visit me in England from Southern Africa and my in laws are mostly Zimbabwean is a big task and if suggested policy is implemented might even include a substantial deposit being lodged. And we are in Russia next. At least they are not members of the EEC.
Can we get a discussion page going abt the rules…
Now to the original subject of this page which was the Kawuma brothers performance. They did very well ; I was one of their victims. However Steven did have 9-10 whites I think as he moved up and down between bds 2 and 3. They are also both living in the UK and I do think that maybe some countries do need to conduct a register of their players living abroad who maybe can travel more easily esp at short notice.
I liked Stewart Ruebens suggestion of merging the Zambian and Uganda teams as the defaults created were unsettling. Bill Hook in possibly his last Olympiad had 3 defualts and then in the last round when he and his team wanted to play found the heavy hand of authority defaulting the Malawi team for a tram problem which left them 7 minutes late. Surely a chess rule is not meant to also make your opponents suffer as well. Craig van Tilbury even played his game through even though it had already been defaulted as a sort of protest. So to discuss the rules!!! Go siame as we say in Botswana.