Monday, October 23, 2006

Georgian Royalty Visit Aussies

Well, chess royalty at least anyway. Latest reports from Michael Brown Eunice Koh (team manager), via Jenni Oliver, indicate that conditions are on the improve for the Australian team in Georgia after that very shabby treatment by Georgian border guards late last week.

Even the menu has been overhauled. Pasta, salads, fresh fish and lots of party food are now keeping the Australian juniors happy.

When I headed to the organizers’ office today to sort out the Georgian passport problem, I was advised by the organizer, Akaki Iashvili that Denis had complained to Ignatius Leong (FIDE secretary) about the treatment for Australian delegation. It became a major issue such that we started to lose some of our team members to the 5-star hotel Intourist. But fortunately for the team, it is getting better. We asked for light lunch meals and a more substantial breakfast. Today for lunch, we had pasta, a variety of salads, much better as the days go by, the hotel is improving on a daily basis. Dinner was excellent, there was pizza, fresh fish (with bones), soups, lots of salads, biscuits – party food! We also had a surprise visit from the Georgian chess royalty – Akaki Iashvili did mention he was coming to visit to view the conditions but he brought along the VP of FIDE, Azmaipashvili Zurab & his spouse Marina, Makropolou Fide CP, Nana Aleksandria, Gaprindashvili Nona - 5 time world champion, Michael Khodarkovsky.

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They checked out the place and I got all the parents to give feedback with the exception of those parents who left to go to Intourist Hotel. Anyway, Akaki promised us that the standard of food will be the same as what we now have. He also wanted us to write back to you folks in Australia to try & spread the word that things are improving and not as bad as what we initially reported.

After 5 rounds, Raymond Song (who moved to Shanghai, China last June) is the highest scorer among the Australians. He is on 4 points. And James Obst thankfully appears to have bounced back well from that illness which forced a visit to the hospital. The South Australian is on 3/5, the same score as compatriot Andrew Brown.

The rest of the Australian info are available here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually the extract came from Team Manager Eunice Koh's reports. However I did mention I had seen a very funny unofficial report from Michael Brown, which probably confused TCG.

Michael Brown's reports seem to have made their way onto Matt Sweeney's board and into his newsletter and they really are worth a read.

Jenni

Anonymous said...

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