USA Defeats Canada

[Randy_Bauer]

@tmagchesspgh

In typical “Ugly American” style, we can say we won and Ukraine lost. Let them complain about the unfairness of the tiebreaks. On a geopolitical level, it would have been better for Ukraine to win as that would have ticked off the Russians and Putin far more given the recent hostilities between the two nations. The rivalry in chess between Ukraine and Mother Russia has a long history.

It is nearly as good for Ukraine to get the silver and Russia just the bronze.

It had been a LONG time since the US won gold - now that monkey is on the Russian back.

[billbrock]

@scottrparker

@Randy Bauer

@scottrparker

@billbrock

@Mulfish

Life would have been so much easier if head to head was the first tiebreak!

The SB tiebreaks are fairer. One team could have a weak “Swiss Gambit” start and only catch the other team with a last-round win. That win will obviously help tiebreaks, but msy not be enough.

The Swiss System is necessarily a form of rough justice. It’s not as apparent this year because both Ukraine and USA had great results against killer opposition & were clearly superior to the field.

Maybe the S-B tiebreaks are fairer, but it bears noting that if Germany had played worse then Ukraine would have walked away with the gold. It eventually came down to whether or not German GM Matthias Bluebaum could defeat Estonian IM Tarvo Seaman. He did, so we got the gold. Had Bluebaum lost or drawn, Ukraine would have.

This is so because of the provision that they drop the lowest score. Ukraine beat Germany 2.5-1.5, but they beat Jordan 4-0. If Germany had not won against Estonia then they would have been the lowest scoring team that Ukraine had faced. As it was Jordan had that distinction, and was the one dropped. With Germany out of Ukraine’s field of opponents and Jordan in the Ukrainian team would have edged the US by 2 tiebreak points.

I’m not entirely convinced that having the awarding of the gold medal hinge on a board #3 game between two middle of the pack teams is better than using head-to-head as the first tiebreaker.

Sure, but suggesting the result came down to that one result is a logical fallacy - the difference between the US and the Ukraine on tiebreaks wasn’t based on one single result, it was based on 11 rounds of results from two teams against 11 other teams. These things, based on combined results, are a combination of possibilities. Short of some sort of play-off of the teams, you will never get around this sort of second guessing.

We don’t need a play-off here. We already played the team we ended up tied with. Or do you think we should play them again?

The only really fair way to determine a champion is to have an all-play-all round robin. Since that is logistically impossible here we have to settle for the least bad tiebreak option, which I think is head-to-head, with S-B next in the queue. Head-to-head has the not inconsiderable advantage of being easy to explain. Try explaining the permutations of the S-B system to someone who is not mathematically inclined. In a video on the ChessBase website the US Captain, IM John Donaldson, was explaining the scenario I referenced earlier to interviewer GM Danny King. King got confused. If it confuses him, how well do you think the average Joe is going to understand it?

There is one more advantage to head-to-head; it is completely transparent. It involves only the teams actually tied with each other. There is little room for external manipulation…Suppose it had been Russia we were tied with after 10 rounds, not Ukraine, certainly not a far-fetched possibility. Suppose also that it was not Germany we needed to win in round 11, but Belarus. Do you think there is any chance that Putin would have asked his friends in Belarus to “ask” their players not to try too hard in round 11? Maybe that would never happen, but with head-to-head the scenario could never arise.

Team tiebreakers should work differently than individual tiebreakers. Imagine the US had won ten matches in brilliant 4-0 fashion, while Ukraine had drawn the Faroe Islands and Ireland in the first two rounds, then ground out 2½-1½ wins against lesser opposition, then won a squeaker in round 11. When you’re using match points, S-B is a better tiebreaker than head-to-head or game points. Not crazy about the throwing-out-the-bottom variant used…

And let’s be thankful the title is no longer decided by game points: the gold could have gone to Russia! (Of course, the team pairings would then have been somewhat different…)

[nocab]

There is no such thing as an “…average Joe” in Chess.