Is it just me or is anyone else finding the whole coverage of the Olympiad just a tad boring? The premiere chess blog these days, Chessvibes, barely makes an effort, while Chessbase, still the "go to" chess news site after so many years, is little better! The Germans at least can manage to slip in one or two borrowed video clips.
Our mates over at ChessDom aren't any different from the previous two (their coverage is "live", but I'm not sure if they've actually got a man on the ground) and, of course, one only goes to TWIC to download some games.
I mean surely there's more to a big chess event such as the Olympiad other than PGNs and a quick summary of who won and lost.
For example: are there any interesting personalities? Little controversies? And if you're really ballsy, who among the women players are showing off more of their tits?
Apparently, there's none of it.
Well, anyway, at least our good mate grandmaster David Smerdon has something to say about the weather and, this is what I like most of all for its surprise factor, elevators! You see that's what I'm talking about: just a touch of colour.
Sad to say this, but these "professional" chess journos still have quite a bit to go.
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Agreed. I try to post basic updates for Chess.com, but it's hard to know where to start with so many games going on.
I don't think any chess website currently has the resources to cover the event properly, let alone pursue human interest stories.
Not sure what you mean by women players "showing off more of their tits"! Has someone been naughty again at the Bermuda party?! ;-)
@ SonofPearl: "Has someone been naughty again at the Bermuda party?!"
I don't know. But I sure would like to find out!
- TCG
It takes about 3-4 hours to write the reports and what we get is "ChessVibes barely makes an effort". Well, thanks, but this is what you get when an Olympiad takes place in a just too damn far away place. Many journos simply won't go there, and then all you can do is focus on the chess itself. For tits there's enough place to visit online, Closet GM.
Vasiliev and Barsky, a couple of Russian journalists, are both on site and weave a lot of "human interest" stuff into their journalism (some truly bizarre). Plus Vasiliev is getting daily updates from the Russian captain, Bareev, who's so far managed to e.g. say trainers need sedatives to watch women play endgames, offend the whole of the Peruvian nation and, perhaps my favourite, unfavourably compare Vladimir Malakhov's (rating about 2720) opening knowledge to that of a cleaning lady in the playing complex :)
This was my latest summary: http://www.chessintranslation.com/2010/09/russia-usa-in-the-russian-press/ (there are links to the earlier Olympiad posts at the end). It's probably more what you're looking for, though I'll need to add some better photos :)
GM Simon Williams' website www.gingergm.com has some coverage of the Olympiad
No French maids, but a video (in Russian) of the food:
http://www.ugra-chess.com/node/322
If you want gossip go read a women's mag not a chess site duh.
ChessVibes is clearly the best site for chess news.
Keep up the good work Peter.
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