The Guernsey team prepare to play against Bolivia. The Sarnians down the right-hand side of the table are, from the fourth along, Peter Rowe, Fred Hamperl, Mark Ozanne and Peter Kirby. (0680403)

GUERNSEY had another good showing at the Chess Olympiad despite an incredibly tough draw.

Competing in the recent biennial ‘world cup of chess’ event in Dresden, Germany, the island side of Peter Rowe, Fred Hamperl, Mark Ozanne, Peter Kirby and Toby Brookfield with English international master Robert Bellin as non-playing captain came 126th out of 146 countries.

It follows their performance at the previous Olympiad in 2006 in Turin where they finished 138 out of 150.

But this year saw the Sarnians only twice play teams with a lower ranking than themselves as they came up against the likes of Australia, United Arab Emirates, Syria and Bolivia.

Guernsey came away with three victories, six losses and two draws.

‘Our target was to win three and if we’d won four, we’d have been delighted,’ said Rowe.

‘They were using different rules for who we would play and we seemed to get one of the stronger teams on the same match points as us. We felt we got a hard draw, which in some ways is good as you go to test yourself.’