The 27th

Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 and ...

( ar, أولمبياد الشطرنج ال27, ''uwlimbiad al-shatranj al-27''), organized by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both male and female players. and a women's tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

, took place between November 14 and December 2, 1986, in

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

. Once again, the Olympiad was marred by politics. With the event being held in an Arab nation, Israel couldn't participate, being in an official state of war with several Arab countries. In protest, Western European nations like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands didn't come to Dubai. Strong individual players like

Viktor Korchnoi Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. He ...

Robert Hübner Robert Hübner (born November 6, 1948) is a German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and papyrologist. He was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s. Chess career At eighteen, he was joint winner of the West German Chess ...

, and

Eric Lobron Eric Lobron (born 7 May 1960) is a German chess grandmaster. A former two-time national champion, he has been awarded the title Grandmaster by the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Biography Born in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United ...

also stayed away. With no championship match in progress at the time, the Soviet Union was again able to field the strongest possible team, led by reigning world champion

Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak Elo rating system, rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until ...

and ex-champion

Karpov Karpov (russian: Ка́рпов) is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aleksandr Karpov, Soviet ace, double Hero of the Soviet Union * Anatoly Karpov (born 1951), Russian chess grandmaster, Undisputed World Chess Champion 1975� ...

. Even so, they only finished half a point ahead of England, and they only managed to capture the top spot in the last round. The United States, who had led the table after the penultimate round, had to settle for the bronze medals.

Open event

For the first time, the number of participants reached triple digits. 108 teams from 107 different nations played a 14-round

Swiss system tournament A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...

. In the event of a draw, the tie-break was decided first by using the

Buchholz system The Buchholz system (also spelled Buchholtz) is a ranking or scoring system in chess developed by Bruno Buchholz (died ca. 1958) in 1932, for Swiss system tournaments . It was originally developed as an auxiliary scoring method, but more recently ...

, then by match points. : :

Individual medals

Performance rating The PR (Performance Rating, P-rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s (Cyrix announced it in February 1996) as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of ri ...

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

2746 * Board 1:

8½ / 11 = 77.3% * Board 2: Imed Abdelnabbi 9½ / 12 = 79.2% * Board 3:

Nigel Short Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach, and commentator, who is the vice-president of FIDE since October 2018. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the w ...

10 / 13 = 76.9% * Board 4: Artur Yusupov 10 / 12 = 83.3% * 1st reserve: Luís Muñiz 6 / 7 = 85.7% * 2nd reserve: Ng Ek Teong 6 / 7 = 85.7%

Women's event

A total of 49 nations took part. In the event of a draw, the tie-break was decided first by using the

, then by match points. Like the open event, the women's tournament was dominated by the Soviet Union, captained by world champion Chiburdanidze, who won the gold medals by a comfortable margin. Hungary and Romania took silver and bronze, respectively. The real star of the women's event, though, was 45-year-old ex-world champion Gaprindashvili, who won all of her 10 games and finished with an uncanny performance rating of 2877 – more than 100 points better than the best male. : :

Individual medals

Nona Gaprindashvili Nona Gaprindashvili ( ka, ნონა გაფრინდაშვილი; born 3 May 1941) is a former Soviet Union, Soviet and Georgia (country), Georgian chess player, and the first woman ever to be awarded the FIDE title Grandmaster (ch ...

2877 * Board 1: Tatjana Lematschko 9½ / 11 = 86.4% * Board 2: Faridah Karim 7 / 8 = 87.5% * Board 3:

10 / 10 = 100.0% * Reserve: Gabriela Stanciu-Olărașu 7 / 9 = 77.8%

References

27th Chess Olympiad: Dubai 1986
OlimpBase {{Chess Olympiads 27 Women's Chess Olympiads Olympiad 27 Chess Olympiad 27 Olympiad 27 Chess Olympiad 27 20th century in Dubai