Day 1 at the 45th Chess Olympiad.

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The Open team before 1st round
The Bhutan Open team before the 1st round. Left to right Lhundrup,
Suk Raj, Mahendra, and Bhakta 
 

Dear chess enthusiast's,

I am writing a short note,  to update all the chess enthusiast about the progress of the Team Bhutan at the 45th Chess Olympiad, at Budapest, Hungary.

After a long and tiring flight via India and Poland to get to Budapest, Hungary, the team arrived tired but excited to explore and meet the challenges of the 45th Chess Olympiad.

The players are in a positive mindset and met the 1st round challenge against Albania (Open) and Indonesia (Women), with a quiet and determined resilience. 

The players of Team Bhutan Open and Women Team.



In a Swiss System tournament it always starts with weaker teams playing against stronger teams. So we faced Albania and Indonesia, we lost all 8 games (4 Open + 4 Women). The Open Albanian team were all about 2300+ FIDE rated Titled Master players. The Indonesian Women players were mostly 1900 FIDE rated players. In all honesty we had no real chance in the 1st round but our player put up a spirited fight and made us proud.

Lhundrup (15 years old) our youngest Open player, did exceptionally well against a 2,294 FIDE rated player, his opponent was under pressure for majority of the game and Lhundrup was up 2 points for large parts of the game, almost until the end of the game when he made an error, which allowed his opponent to turn the table. This performance was beyond expectations give the almost 600 FIDE rating point difference between the two players.

The 2nd round is today in a few hours and the Open team plays Botswana, one of the strongest teams from Africa and our Women team plays Chinese Taipei, again both our opposition are much stronger and we have very little chance, but we expect our players will put up a strong and spirited fight and hopefully one of our players will get a scalp.

I will update the chess community every day as the tournaments goes on.

Please send positive vibes and good wishes to our player.

Best Regards.


Thinley Palden Dorji

President 

Bhutan Chess Federation.     









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