100 Dinara Yugoslavian 925 silver commemorative chess coin, 1990. 29th Chess Olympiad. The coin is 27mm in diameter and weighs 13 grams, with a milled edge. The obverse shows the state emblem, the reverse the Petrovaradin clock tower, chessboard background.

The 29th Chess Olympiad was held in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Many expected that it would not happen, the economy was in state of collapse and the directors and various other pre-Olympiad organisers had been replaced five months prior to the event. The organisers, however, went out of their way to make the arrivals most welcome.

Prior to the opening ceremony Campomanes and Vlada Popović, president of the Organising Committee, issued a joint statement rightly but regretfully rejecting the entries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania following the arrival of their respective teams. Despite a petition signed by many of the leading players including Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Beliavsky, Timman and Seirawan the three Baltic states were not allowed to play. Ehlvest, Tal, Oll, and Shirov's talent were not to be put on display.

All of top teams came to Novi Sad, for the last time we saw teams of old Eastern Block: the Soviet Union, East Germany and federal Yugoslavia. Even though Kasparov and Karpov were missing from the Soviet team they were commonly recognised as big favourites for gold, led by Ivanchuk and Gelfand. England's trio: Short, Speelman and Nunn guaranteed them second position in the seeding table. The USA had refused Kamsky's demands for board one and an extra $10,000 fee. They thought that the extra 70 odd ELO points are less important than team spirit. Then came Yugoslavia (who had extremely strong "B" and "C" teams, seeded 10th and 17th respectively) and the Netherlands. Hungary were missing Portisch, Pintér and Sax, who only wanted to play at top board and Ribli was chosen instead. Iceland sent top 6 and were seeded in 7th. Other potential contenders for medals were Sweden, West Germany and Israel.

Round one usually sees the minnows playing the giants. This time it was giant vs giant, minnow vs minnow. The pairing committee were heavily criticised by players, officials and press for the pairing system of round 1. The teams were divided into groups of 30 according to ELO table. Then, all the teams were paired within respective groups according to standard Swiss rules. Thus seed no. 1 matched seed 16, 2nd seeds played 17th while seed no. 31 faced no. 46. The inevitable naturally happened and the joint leaders after day one were the mighty chess powers Albania, Barbados, Ecuador, Indonesia, Trinidad&Tobago and Yemen. Third world countries such as the Soviet Union were lying in 7th, USA 15th (Seirawan vs Kortschnoj was a juicy first round pairing), England 29th and lucky to be that high, Holland 61st after losing to Spain.

The crazy pairing system in round 1 meant some odd looking matches on day 2. The one that most caught the eye was Vietnam vs USA, three American and one ex-Soviet GMs combined together to take on four defenceless unrateds seemed unfair. Much to everybody's amazement Vietnam easily scored a point and might have scored more as Benjamin came close to defeat. The top clash of the day was a central table hero fight where Albania narrowly beat Indonesia. Argentina playing on table 12 easily overcame Haiti 4-0 to move into the lead with 7½/8. Of the pretenders starting the round with maximum points only Ecuador managed to score 3-1 vs Trinidad&Tobago. Scotland vs Soviet Union was nearly, but not quite a major upset. Of the Soviets playing white neither Gelfand nor Yudasin could make any progress. Motwani, but for an error just before the time control, might at least have drawn if not won.

The hosts, Yugoslavia "A" defeated the leaders Argentina in the top clash of round 3. Nikolić King's walk in a Queen's ending helping them to their way. Chile became the latest, but surely not the last team to take the lead by easily overcoming their South American rivals Ecuador 3½-½. England were very fortunate to beat Greece by as wide margin as 3-1. Pia Cramling, having won her first two games for Sweden conceded her first half point - against Yusupov. Andersson kept Ivanchuk quiet so Sweden lost only 3-1 to the USSR. Standings: Chile 10½; USA and Yugoslavia "A" 10; Bulgaria, England, Portugal, USSR and West Germany 9½.

Chile, not surprisingly, lost the lead on the next day going down to USA 3-1. Morović had sacrificed first a pawn, then another pawn, then a Knight before drawing some 30 moves later. Ljubojević's Queen sac vs Gelfand was the star attraction of the round, but was only enough to a draw leaving the Yugoslav team on the field with a 2½-1½ loss. England, still struggling, could only manage four draws against Bulgaria - Speelman after being two pawns down in a Rook ending and Adams after his opponent's major pieces had infiltrated the seventh rank.

After five days the weaker teams were finally disappearing from the top boards although Portugal refused to lay down and die despite playing Hungary, holding the Hungarians to a sensational draw. USA at last playing a real chess power beat West Germany 2½-1½. Czechoslovakia by crushing 48th seeded Paraguay 4-0 moved into a share of the lead. England vs USSR as usual drew the crowds. Short missed his chances in a complex game against Ivanchuk and lost which put England into trouble. Chandler mishandled his clock and was forced to concede a draw to seal Soviet's 2½-1½ win. Sweden, as in the past, were up one day and down the next. Having struggled the day before 2½-1½ vs weak Ireland on day five they murdered Canada 3½-½.

The leading 15 matches of round six brought either narrow victories or drawn matches. The top three saw minimum victories for USA, USSR and Yugoslavia "A". The highlight was undoubtedly Hübner's win against Ivanchuk. However with both Gelfand and Bareev winning the Soviets still won. Match at table 16 saw Australia with not one of their strongest teams beat Ireland by the impressive margin of 4-0 to move into a share of sixth place, their highest ever placing.

Round seven was a highly interesting day both on and off the board. By now a leading official in the press room had been sacked following numerous justified complaints from various journalists regarding his attitude towards them. On the boards the Soviet Union at last moved into a share of the lead when they defeated their arch rivals USA 2½-1½ in a highly interesting match. Historians today saw the last East vs West Germany match. The Czechs beat the hosts and England took full advantage of an advantageous pairing by hammering Australia 3½-½. Iceland also scored 3½ vs Mexico to move nearer the top - at last. Standings in the halfway: USSR, USA and Czechoslovakia 19½; England 19; West Germany and Bulgaria 18½.

The main event of the round 8 was USA's second successive defeat, this time at the hands of England where Chandler beat De Firmian. Chandler's score by then was an impressive 6/7. With the Soviets and Czechs drawing all four games against each other this meant again a three-way tie at the top. England, USSR and Yugoslavia "A" were all reduced to 5 players as both Nunn and Beliavsky were down with flu. Yugoslavia's sacking of Popović was confirmed also. A statistical sensation of the day was that only teams to avoid match loss so far were USSR and Portugal (sic!).

The Soviet team took the lead by themselves by defeating China 3-1. Gelfand, clearly losing for much of the game was at the end, like Beliavsky, pressing unsuccessfully for the win. Yugoslavia "A", as well as the Soviet Union and England in the previous two rounds, defeated the Americans without losing a single game.