Our Placing Will Depend On Last Round Result Says Psakhis
By Arvind Aaron

The Dresden bound Indian men and women teams are undergoing training camps at Chennai (men) and Delhi (women). This is the second camp and the first one was held at Banglore and Calicut from 05^th to 20^th June, 2008 to  Grandmasters Krishnan Sasikiran (TN), P. Harikrishna (AP), Surya S Ganguly, Sandipan Chanda (both Ben), G.N. Gopal (Ker) are attending the camp under the watchful eyes of Grandmaster LevPsakhis.

Women Grandmasters Dronavalli Harika (AP), Tanis Sachdev (Del), Nisha Mohota, Mary Ann Gomes (both Ben), Swati Ghate (Mah) are attending the camp at New Delhi. Grandmaster Elizbar Ubilava is incharge at New Delhi.  The coaching camps are under senior reputed grand masters Lev Psakhis of Israel and Elizbar Ubilava of Georgia.
 

Psakhis, the celebrated trainer said the placing of India at Dresden will depend on "luck" and upon whom we meet and what we do in the last round. "For example, if we are in the third place after ten rounds and lose in round eleven we can even drop to twelfth place," said Psakhis. Olympiad is a kind of a "lottery". A team with Kramnik, Morozevich etc. only finished sixth at Turin.

Psakhis was the key to India winning the Gold Medal at the Doha Asian Games in December 2008. That time he trained the trio of Sasikiran, Harikrishna and Humpy. "On that occasion we had one main opponent China, now there are about 20 team and this is more difficult," said Psakhis about the new challenge on hand.

Psakhis is giving the players lot of positions to work on and our players are learning among other things "endings" said Visweswaran.

Psakhis who eats all types of food is a vegetarian while in India. The Indian team had mini-meals and sandwich in the break as they work seven hours or longer each day.

Asked to compare India with Israel, Psakhis said, "that is a tough question. My heart is divided between Israel and India. With Vishy Anand in the team India will have an edge, else about equal."

AICF Coaching Co-Ordinator K. Visweswaran said the camp will be for two weeks from Sep 9-23. "We are using a projector from a Chess Base for the first time to speed up," said Visweswaran. Asked why there are no laptop computers in the camp, Psakhis said computers are needed to study openings and this camp is two months before the Olympiad and theory changes fast.

Camps as these offer us to learn and also to be together. Only G.N. Gopal is new to the team said Sasikiran, the oldest member of the team who himself made a debut in the Elista Olympiad of 1998. Sasikiran is also seeking permission to run and warm up in the Nehru Stadium from tomorrow morning.

"We studied some endings this morning and are getting along very well as you can see," said Harikrishna, the former world junior champion.

India finished sixth at Calvia in Spain 2004 and that is our best placing since making a debut in the Chess Olympiad from Moscow 1956. The All India Chess Federation had taken the best measures to select and train our players for Dresden 2008. Due to the World Chess Championship match at Bonn in Germany from October 14-November 2, Viswanathan Anand would not be competing this year. The Dresden Olympiad runs from Nov 12-25.

What's new in Dresden 2008?

Players have to be in the seat five minutes prior to the start of their games else they forfeit the game. Draws are not allowed before the completion of Black's 30th move. A player may not leave his chair when it is his turn to move without seeking permission of the match arbiter. There are only 11 rounds and both men and women teams will have five players with one reserve and four players. The placings will depend upon Match Points and not team points.