OlimpBase :: 3rd World Blind Team Chess Championship, Logroño 1998, information

Basic data

3rd World Blind Team Chess Championship
(see all-time tournament summary)

Date:

17th - 27th February 1998

City:

Logroño, Spain

Venue:

N/A

Tournament Director:

N/A

Chief Arbiter:

N/A

Teams participating:

9 (8 top teams from 1996 Blind Olympiad and Macedonia)

Players participating:

43 (incl. 4 IMs, 3 FMs and 1 WIM)

Games played:

144

Competition format:

Four board round robin.

Final order decided by:

1. Game points; 2. Match points

Time control:

N/A

Websites:

http://www.schachkomet.de/wct1998.htm

Downloadable game file:

98wtchblind.zip

Tournament review

The Spanish town of Logroño, situated half way along the river Ebro, with roughly 130,000 inhabitants, hosted the 3rd IBCA World Cup. Unfortunately, three of the teams who had qualified for this event by finishing among the top twelve at the last Olympiad (Brazil 1996) were unable to take part for various reasons. Therefore there were only nine teams who presented themselves to compete in this event. Even the reserve teams who had finished 13th, 14th and 15th in the 10th Blind Chess Olympiad (i.e. Austria, Croatia and Sweden respectively) were unable to step in.

Titleholders Russia were considered top favourites. As expected, the Russians won the tournament, earning impressive advantage over the rest, although they lost to Poland on day five. Ukraine came second and the bronze medals went to Poland, led by Dukaczewski (7/8). The Poles beat both Russia and Ukraine, but performed poorly against teams like Germany (1½-2½) or Hungary (2-2). Spain came level on game points with Poland but lost on match point count.