Chess Scotland
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37th Women’s Chess Olympiad, Turin in Italy,
21st May – 4th June 2006
By IM Steve Mannion
I was delighted
to be offered captain and coach of the team early this year. I have played in 8 men’s Olympiads from
1988 until 2004 totalling 69 games but had no hesitation of accepting this
great honour.
Scotland did not field a women’s team last time
in 2004 so I was really pleased that once the selections were made, Jacob Aagaard managed to get the players to compete in this
wonderful event.
There was
coaching supplied to the players at the beginning of May over a weekend and
it was good to see the players take advantage of this. One of the players who could not play in
the Olympiad due to other commitments, Heather Lang, also choose
to take up the offer of the coaching.
I thank her for making the effort.
Our players
contained a mixture of experience and youth.
Helen Milligan
is a regular for Scotland
and played on board one. She was also
chasing the WIM title.
Rosie Giulian who does not play a great deal of chess and who
has not played in Olympiads for the last twenty years made a welcome return
on board two.
We had two young
players making their debuts; they are probably the youngest ever Scots to
play in an adult team event.
Amy Officer on
three had exams to finish off first and joined the team four days into the
event.
Rhian Hughes on
four had the chance to gain as much experience as possible to hopefully
become a really strong player.
We also had
Jeremy Hughes who came along and was a great help to me which meant I could
spend more time helping the team. He
has also turned out to be a great friend.
As it is four
players fighting over the three boards each day selection over the first
three matches was not an issue, as Amy had not arrived. There were a total of 13 matches (39 games)
and 2 rest days.
I had various
plans, which included giving Amy and Rhian one game together as I felt it was
important to try and ease them into their biggest event without putting too
much pressure on them. I also wanted
to try and make sure the colours they all received would be roughly the same.
Due to many
issues that came up I fielded both our young players together three
times. On the colour front there was a
chance of Amy getting seven blacks and no whites so I had to change a few
things to alter this pattern.
I was extremely
happy with the player’s attitude to preparing for their games, effort they
put in during their games and the continued work after their games to learn
more.
Helen (4.5/12)
faced some tough opponents and was the first Scot to record a result for the
team. She was the player that quite
happily did not play in one of the early rounds which helped Amy secure her
first win and help settle any nerves.
Rosie (5.5/11)
proved to be a solid and reliable player who played some strong chess. She actually qualifies to receive the WCM
title but chose not to apply for it.
Amy (6/9) once
she started getting some points her confidence really improved and played to
a very high standard. At one stage she
had the WCM title in the bag but went on to become Scotland’s youngest Fide Master.
Rhian (1.5/7)
played some inspired games. There were
a few games where she was sacking pieces, which as long as she does not lose
confidence in continuing to do this will be a super player. I had no problems choosing her, as the
effort she made was very encouraging.
One of my goals
was to avoid any 3-0 defeats. The team
played well enough to avoid this.
The team
finished 73rd out of 108 teams, which was on par with our seeding.
To find out how
well the team played and how close we came to an even better result check out
the June Issue of Scottish Chess Magazine where I also feature one of our
games.
I really enjoyed
my experience as coach where hopefully I made a difference towards helping
our team. I also enjoyed being captain
where instead of my usual worrying about me playing the one game, I had three
games to worry about. The team did me
proud which added to my experience.
 
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