[imagefield_assist|fid=11259|preset=fullsize|title=GM Ben Finegold arrived in Shanghai to take in the sights before heading to Ningbo.|desc=|link=none|origsize=|align=center|width=640|height=427]
Day One
It’s Chinatown!
Tony and I arrived in Shanghai yesterday (or was it 2 days ago, and if so, which day in which time zone and country?). Let me start over. Tony and I left on the non-stop flight from Detroit to Shanghai on Tuesday, July 12, at 4PM and arrived Wednesday at 6:30PM! The flight was fine, and actually not as bad as I had anticipated. Tony slept a lot, and I think I only got an hour or so of shut-eye.
Why are we in China? The U.S.A. team is here to play in the World Team Championship in Ningbo. We are staying at the Crowne Plaza in Shanghai, which is a nice five star hotel, and reasonably priced. Some of the other members of our team were already here (Robert Hess and Alex Onischuk), John Donaldson arrived later in the evening, and Gata Kamsky arrived even later (1:30AM!). We are still waiting for Var Akobian, who arrives Friday night, and Yasser Seirawan, who is flying directly to Ningbo, and will arrive Friday night as well. Most of the delegation is taking the train to Ningbo Friday at 1PM local time, and Tony, Var, and I will take the train Saturday morning. The opening ceremony is Saturday, and Round 1 is Sunday.
The team line-up is as follows:
- Board 1: Gata Kamsky
- Board 2: Alex Onischuk
- Board 3: Yuri Shulman
- Board 4: Yasser Seirawan
- Reserve Robert Hess
- Team Captain John Donaldson
- Coaches Var Akobian and Ben Finegold
- Head of Delegation Tony Rich
The U.S. team took 2nd place in the last World Team Championship, held in January 2010 in Bursa, Turkey, but things will be more difficult this time around. Hikaru Nakamura is playing in a Super GM tournament in Dortmund. Also, most of the teams are real powerhouses this year, with the U.S. team ranked 7th out of the 10 teams.
Here is a list of the teams competing this year:
Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Egypt, Israel, India, China, Azerbaijan, Hungary, and the U.S.A.
The event is a RR, so we will play each team. The tournament will be scored in match points, so in the 4 board matches, 2.5 points or more wins each match, and 2-2 would be a tie.
I will be blogging, hopefully each day, and give all the pertinent information to my wonderful readers!
[imagefield_assist|fid=11110|preset=fullsize|lightbox=true|title=GM Robert Hess plays a game against club member Jason Zhou, who is traveling in China with his family.|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=640|height=427]
Day Two
How much?
Day two in China was quite fun. First, the “team” went to Ningbo on the 1 p.m. train (a three-hour train ride). Tony and I stayed behind to hang out with Var Akobian, whose plane landed at 6:40 p.m. local time, Friday evening. The three of us will take the train to Ningbo in the morning, and meet up with the others.
Everyone says the hotel in Ningbo is fantastic, so we can’t wait to go. The opening ceremonies are Saturday at 6 p.m., and the games start at 3 p.m. local time Sunday. There are no rest days, and there is one game per day, July 17-25. The closing ceremonies are July 26.
Tony and I left the hotel Friday with Jason Zhou’s mom, Lisa, to sight-see and do some shopping! First we went to a Buddhist temple, right in the heart of Shanghai. That was fascinating, and not like anything I have seen before. We then went to the Yu Market which is a free for all shopping bazaar! You can go into legitimate shops or haggle with street vendors. I guess Tony and I should learn how to say “how much”, as this would have been helpful on several occasions. It is extremely crowded, and for the most part, the vendors and shop owners are very aggressive. We had a great lunch in that area and got some interesting things as well, so it was a nice time.
After we “shopped till we dropped” we went to the chess club (again!) to pick up Jason. Naturally, I played some blitz with chess coach and WGM Ping. I was able to draw with black and win with white (very professional for blitz!). We got back to the hotel about 6PM, and had a nice dinner. Var arrived about 8PM, and we were all so tired, Tony and I went to sleep at 9PM, and Var went to get some food, after his 14.5 hour flight!
My next blog will be from Ningbo, and I will try to give my readers a sense of the opening ceremonies, and what it is like to be around most of the best chess players in the world.
[imagefield_assist|fid=11109|preset=fullsize|lightbox=true|title=The U.S. Team poses at the opening ceremony: IM John Donaldson, GM Varuzhan Akobian, GM Yury Shulman, GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Gata Kamsky, GM Alex Onischuk, GM Robert Hess, GM Ben Finegold.|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=640|height=407]
Day Three
Arriving in Ningbo
Day three in China was a bit stressful. Saturday morning we needed to get the 11:07 a.m. train to Ningbo, and finding a taxi big enough for Tony, Var, me, and all of our luggage was not as simple as it seems! China has very small taxis, and normally three is a maximum, and that is without luggage! Luckily we found a bigger-than-normal taxi, and we were off to the train station. The train station was big and complicated, and we eventually found what we thought was the right line to enter the tracks, but, our rail car was #7, and the line we were in was for 9 and higher, so, at least we were close! We boarded the train a few minutes early, and it was off to Ningbo. The train was sweet, going over 130 mph and stopping rarely. We arrived in Ninbgo at 2:05 p.m., and that is where things got tricky. Tony and I were each given a piece of paper by team Captain John Donaldson with the address and name of our hotel in Chinese. Unfortunately, we could not find those papers, and we were pretty confident we could just say the name of the hotel in English (New Century Grand Hotel Ningbo) and have no issues. Wrong we were! We must have asked 15 taxi drivers to take us to the hotel, and nobody understood us for over 15 minutes. Also, we had a lot of luggage, and it was at least 95 degrees outside… and I mean celcius!! ;-) Eventually one of the taxi drivers spoke English, and off we were in two taxis (no taxi in Ningbo could possibly hold the three of us and our luggage!). In fact, we made a slight error in weight management, as Var rode in one cab, whilst Tony and I rode the other, and our cab was hitting the ground, and the taxi driver seemed particularly worried about his tires.
Eventually we got to the hotel, and it is 5 stars all the way! The rooms are beautiful, and everything about the hotel is first class. We did not have time for lunch, as Tony and I needed to prep (no, not chess!) for our singing performance at the opening ceremony! No, that was not a joke. The organizers asked each team to perform something (music, art, etc) . In fact, only China, India, and the U.S.A. actually did perform, as it seems chickening out was the better part of valor for most of the countries. Tony and I sang “Free fallin’” by Tom Petty, although, we used the John Mayer version as our inspiration. Hopefully my dear readers will see video someday! Luckily (hmm, maybe not so luckily?) we have some pics.
The drawing of lots gave us No. 1, and we play No. 10 Russia in round 1, and we have white on boards 1 and 3. We have the tough Armenian team in round 2 (we are still white on 1 and 3) and then we play Egypt in round 3.
Go USA!!
[imagefield_assist|fid=11108|preset=fullsize|lightbox=true|title=A few inaccuracies allowed Russian GM Ian Nepomniatchi to capture a full point with a victory over GM Alex Onischuk.|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=640|height=304]
Day Four
U.S. loses to Japan … I mean Russia
Not a good day for the U.S.A. Not only did the women lose to Japan in the Soccer World Cup, but the men lost to Russia in the World Team Chess Championship! Things did not go our way in round 1. Robert Hess was surprised early on board 4, and never got a good position against Nikita Vitiugov. Alex Onischuk was slightly worse on board 2 in a Scotch and was slowly outplayed by Ian Nepomniatchi. So we lost both games with black, and we also got nothing going with white. Shulman-Svidler was a theoretical Gruenfeld, and Svidler defended accurately to split the point. Kamsky could get nothing against Sergey Karjakin and had to repeat moves to avoid being worse. Not a good start for team U.S.A., but we expect to bounce back against Armenia in round 2.
The hotel is quite nice, and prep seems to be going well, with Var and I helping out the ones who need it and rooting for everyone in general. It is a great team atmosphere here in Ningbo, and to upset the Armenians would be great! Let’s go U.S.A.!
