ARMENIAN CHESS TEAM COACH: WE’VE GOT A VERY FRIENDLY TEAM
PanARMENIAN.Net
September 27, 2012 – 18:27 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – The head coach of Armenian chess team Arshak
Petrosyan commented on Armenia’s third victory in World Chess Olympiad.
“We’ve got a very friendly team. When people say: “One for all and
all for one!” – it could be about us.
The preparation for the next round is where you can see the role
of a real team leader, Levon Aronian, who’s ready to share his vast
knowledge with all the players. I don’t think that’s possible in all
of the other teams. Secondly, a team which systematically wins ends
up with a winning spirit. We almost always think we’ve got a chance,
regardless of how a tournament’s going. A clear example of that is
the European Championship last year, in which we shared 3rd-4th place
and didn’t even claim medals. After losing in the second round we won
the next 5 matches as if nothing had happened, and before the final
round we were even in first place. What does team spirit mean? Here in
Istanbul we lost to the Chinese team, and pretty quickly. It seemed
as though we didn’t have any chance at all as the Russians could win
all their remaining matches. However, we didn’t hold a post-mortem,
and after a few introductory words we immediately split into groups and
got down to preparing for the next encounter. We began to discuss who
would help who with what – an absolutely working atmosphere. Perhaps
those are the main components of success, although I’d once again
emphasise our family atmosphere.
I could characterise each player in the team individually, starting
with Aronian – he’s a true team leader.
His willingness to support anyone at any moment with opening
preparation is worth a lot, while at the same time he played
brilliantly himself, taking first place on the first board. Sergei
Movsesian, as you can see, is the only person in our team who limited
himself to 50% of the points, but at the same time he won two crucial
games against Grischuk and Almasi, which ensured we took the title.
Therefore he made a very big contribution to the victory. In general,
after he transferred to the team last year it’s become much more
compact. We’ve got 4 powerful boards, which was also proven at the
World Championship in Ningbo. Vladimir Akopian, who took 2nd place
on his board, played wonderfully, winning 5 games and drawing 5.
So we had the strongest line-up in the whole history of the team.
Tigran also played well, scoring 2.5 points in the first three rounds,
though after that we played exclusively with the main line-up,”
whychess.com quoted the head coach as saying.