FIDE Online Olympiad: Quarterfinals are set
Poland defeats Bulgaria to advance to quarters No prisoners were taken in the match between Poland and Bulgaria, where all the games in both rounds reached a decisive result. All except one, which ended in a draw by accident: Viktoria Radeva was a piece up in the first round encounter, but she inadvertently repeated the same position three times against Alicja Sliwicka, who couldn’t hide her joy in front of the webcam. This half a point was decisive, as it allowed Poland scrape out a victory by a minimal margin (3½ – 2½) in a match that would have been a draw otherwise. Poland’s second board Radoslaw Wojtaszek Poland’s top players proved to be stronger than their Bulgarian counterparts, and both Duda and Wojtaszek made a clean sweep in their games against Delchev and Enchev respectively. On the other hand, Bulgaria dominated the female boards: Salimova defeated Karina Cyfka in both rounds, while Radeva took her little revenge winning her second game against Sliwicka. Socko lost to the former Women’s World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova in the first game, but then won the second, and this was one of the results that tipped the balance towards a more comfortable victory (4-2) for the Polish team. Match 1 Bulgaria 2½ : 3½ Poland Delchev 0 : 1 Duda Enchev 0 : 1 Wojtaszek Stefanova 1 : 0 Socko Salimova 1 : 0 Cyfka Petrov 0 : 1 Gumularz Radeva ½ : ½ Sliwicka Match 2 Poland 4 – 2 Bulgaria Duda 1 : 0 Delchev Wojtaszek 1 : 0 Enchev Socko 1 : 0 Stefanova Cyfka 0 : 1 Salimova Gumularz 1 : 0 Petrov Sliwicka 0 : 1 Radeva It was a busy day at the office for most of the Polish players, since these days they are also playing the national clubs competition: the super-strong Ekstraliga. Many of them had to play an over-the-board classical game starting at 1 pm, and then run to their hotel rooms in Katowice to play the Online Olympiad game at 6 pm. Poland takes on Azerbaijan in Quarter-Finals, which will take place tomorrow, August 28. The other QF duels are India – Armenia, Russia – Hungary, and USA – Ukraine. Armenia will be the rival of India in Quarter-Finals Greece has become one of the revelations of the first Online Olympiad, thanks, among other reasons, to the star performance by the young talent Stavroula Tsolakidou. However, their run in the FIDE Online Olympiad came to an end today, after the clash with a superior Armenian team. Despite Stavroula winning again both her games, Armenia outclassed the Greeks by 4½ – 1½ in the first round and won again by 3½ – 2½ in the second. Armenia’s top player Levon Aronian The pillars of the Armenian team were a veteran, Levon Aronian, and a relative newcomer, Anna Sargsyan. Aronian won both his games with relative ease, first against Dimitrios Mastrovasilis, and then against Hristos Banikas. Sargsyan defeated Anastasia Avramidou with both colors. This is not the first great performance by Anna with the national team, since she already won a bronze medal on the 4th board at the last European Teams Championship in Batumi last year, where she also achieved WGM and IM norms. Meanwhile, Woman Grandmaster Stavroula Tsolakidou (Greece), now a freshman at Saint Louis Chess University, took her overall score to an impressive 14.5 points out of 19 games. The Greek star IM Stavroula Tsolakidou The Armenians advance to Quarter-Finals, where they will face India (Friday, August 28). Match 1 Greece 1½ : 4½ Armenia Mastrovasilis 0 : 1 Aronian Halkias 0 : 1 Sargissian Tsolakidou 1 : 0 Danielian Botsari 0 : 1 Mkrtchian Theodoru ½ : ½ Martirosyan Avramidou 0 : 1 Sargsyan Match 2 Armenia 3½ : 2½ Greece Aronian 1 : 0 Banikas Sargissian ½ : ½ Halkias Danielian 1 : 0 Tsolakidou Mkrtchian ½ : ½ Botsari Martirosyan ½ : ½ Theodoru Sargsyan 0 : 1 Avramido Ukraine knocks down China, advances to Quarter-Finals Ukraine and China were the top seeds in their respective groups at the top division, but both failed to claim the first place and, as a result, they had to battle each other for a spot in Quarter-Finals against the USA. The clash between these two chess giants came down to an Armageddon game after the two regular matches reached a 3-3 result. In the first round, Ukraine was temporary two points down, because the Chinese victories came early in the match. But despite these early setbacks, Ukraine was actually very close to winning. Vassily Ivanchuk lost to Ding Liren with Black, while Shevchenko and Berdnyk took the whole point. Both Irina Gaponenko and Natalia Zhukova had much better positions against Hou Yifan and Ju Wenjun respectively. However, Gaponenko lost the thread of the game and lost, while Zhukova missed a forced checkmate and agreed to a draw. The resulting 3-3 tasted like a lucky save by the Chinese team. GM Vassily Ivanchuk, the leader of team Ukraine The second match was also very balanced, but again the chances of Ukraine looked a bit better. Four of the six games ended in a draw, while Julia Osmak took down a very dangerous rival in rapid chess: Tan Zhongyi. Meanwhile, Zhu Jiner leveled the score by defeating Mariia Berdnyk. This is where 17-year-old Kirill Shevchenko decided to spice things up adding some drama to the clash. The young prodigy, who had won all his 7 games so far in this competition, conceded his first draw in this round, after failing to find a decisive blow that could have given him the whole point – and a team victory. However, Kirill was given an immediate opportunity to make things right, since it was decided that the Armageddon game for this duel between Ukraine and China would be a clash between the two junior boards. For the third time in the day, Shevchenko and Liu Yan crossed swords – the Ukrainian rising star demonstrated stamina and nerves of steel and, in a favorable endgame, he created enough problems for his opponent to make him forfeit on time. The Quarter-Finals clash between Ukraine and the United States will take place