What an event, what a performance, what a finish! No matter how you slice it, 7 wins against 1 draw and 3 losses is an excellent result. Maili-Jade, Yunshan, Bich Ngoc, Svitlana, and Oksana represented Canada extremely well.

They finished 20th out of 169 teams, which places them in the 12th percentile of all countries. This is a massive improvement over 2022, when we finished 54th out of 150, or 36th percentile. Of course, we knew going in that this year’s team was much stronger! So really the team came basically as advertised: they scored 7.5/8 against opposing teams whom outrated, and 0/3 against those who outrated them. The matches with Bulgaria and Hungary were close, and a slight difference of fortunes in either of those could easily have put Canada on top.

It’s an exciting time to be a fan of Canadian women’s chess! I’m very proud to have played a small part in its recent history, and to be in a position to follow and comment on the team’s games with some understanding of what they go through in their competitions. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last spectacular result from this group, to say nothing of the many up-and-coming youngsters behind them. Having played alongside and against some of these players (and some of the up-and-comers), I can tell you that they are all extremely strong.

From an individual performance perspective, I have to single out Maili-Jade on Board 1, whose results were not only the best on the team, but also the furthest above expectations based on rating. She played all 11 rounds, winning 7 games, drawing 3, and losing only once, against a grandmaster, when she uncharacteristically blundered in a drawn position. She finished the tournament with four straight wins and a 2415 performance, good enough for 36th-best out of 907 players, and ahead of a lot of IMs. She stands to gain 34 rating points for this result, vaulting her up to 2352, or by my estimate, 20th-ranked overall in Canada. But for one misstep in the match with Scotland, she could be ranked even higher. At this point, she must be a serious contender for the title of strongest female chess player in Canadian history.

Oksana was also a significant overachiever, with fantastic outcomes in the openings and consistently superior positional play. She finished the Olympiad as the 10th-best Board 5 player overall. Her games were a pleasure to play through, and I would recommend them to any improving club player as probably the most instructive set of games by a master-level player I’ve seen in a long time. It isn’t practical to learn directly from games by the world’s top players: trying to play like current Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun won’t end well, and even Maili-Jade’s aggressive style demands a level of precision that club players are ill-advised to attempt. But play through Oksana’s games, and you can understand them and aspire to follow her example. I intend to try that approach myself! She scored 4 wins, 3 draws, and 1 loss, and just like Maili-Jade’s case, her only loss came from an uncharacteristic oversight in a position against an extremely strong opponent, where she probably deserved a better outcome than she got. Oksana will gain 13 points for her own performance.

Congratulations to all five players, and to the captain, for an excellent result!!

While I’ve primarily been interested in the women’s team, I’d like to note that the Open team also acquitted itself very well. They finished 35th, exactly equal to their seeding, with some outstanding early results balanced by later stumbles. Drawing Norway and beating Czechia and Greece made for an amazing start to the event. Shiyam will gain 22 rating points, to my complete lack of surprise, boosting himself up over 2400, and Razvan will gain 24, having turned in the 9th-best performance of any Board 4 in the event (2631 across 9 games played). That would be a grandmaster norm, if he weren’t already a GM! And of course the rest of the team also played very well. So congratulations to the Open team and their captain, as well!