Round 9

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Wales v Belgium
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1. FM Jones Richard (2321)..- FM Hautot Stephane (2420)......0-1
2. FM Rees Ioan (2336) .....- IM Saiboulatov Daniyal (2395)..0-1
3. Dineley Richard (2270) ..- FM Docx Stefan (2384) .........0-1
4. Bennett Alan (2108) .....- IM Polaczek Richard (2381).....0-1
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Report from Tim

You're gonna look at the score and think we got mashed up by a superior team today and you'd just be so..... wrong. We had 4 perefectly good positions and just blundered them all away.

Richard J played a brilliant Welsh Attack against the Najdorf, sac'ed on e6 and was almost home and dry before missing one tactic and the Belgian scrambled away with his extra material.

Ioan outplayed his opponent with Black, won a pawn and got to an ending which was technically difficult to win but unfortunately tried so hard that when things went slightly wrong he lost the plot and failed to even draw it.

Richard D also reached an ending with a material advantage (2R's & 4 vs R, B & 5) before falling for the most transparent cheapo imaginable

Alan I suppose, was only better on the computer as his opponent made a speculative exchange sac to generate play in an other evenish position. Unfortunately the rapid change of scene succeeded psychologically straightaway as Alan transposed two moves and left his queen en prise.

What an utter disaster, and a really sad end to what has been an excellent campaign. Still, I'm determined to end on a positive note .... we would have played Monaco in the next round of course, so that would've been 4/10 .... plus we should've won this match so .... when I get back and people say how did you do I 'm gonna casually say "oh, about halfway". Two more years of hard work and that's where we'll be next time.

Final, final note: the finish of the whole tournament was very dramatic as the whole thing came down to Gashimov (Azerbaijan) needing to beat Stellwagen (Netherlands) to win their match and finish just ahead of Russia. By move 70 it had come down to R+P vs R+P with both players at 30 seconds per move to finish the game. It should have been drawn but the Dutchman finally cracked and within seconds of his resignation the Azeri was literally at the bottom of a football-style celebration as his team-mates, managers and national officials swamped the board hugging and kissing him and eachother. Can't quite make my mind up whether I like such unrestrained emotion in chess or not - but to have that passion for chess in Wales might not be a bad thing !