FIDE Online Olympiad: India and Russia meet in the final
Russia beats the USA, moves into the final India is the last obstacle between Russia and the gold medal. Russia has not won a Chess Olympiad since 2002. The final will take place tomorrow Sunday, August 30, at 11:00 UTC (14:00 in Moscow, 16:30 in Delhi). Russia moves into the final of the first Online Chess Olympiad, after a very tight match against the USA. The Russian team won the first round by minimal margin (3½-2½), then drew the second match (3-3) to seal their pass to the final. In general, Russia seemed to have the match situation under control for most of the time, but both matches could have gone either way in the time scrambles, as the narrow score shows. The first match was decided by the results among the female players, where all three games reached a decisive outcome. Aleksandra Goryachkina played aggressively with White against Anna Zatonskih, castling long and launching a pawn onslaught on the kingside. At the right moment, the young Russian star traded her initiative for an extra pawn in a rook ending, that she converted flawlessly. Alexandra Kosteniuk outplayed Tatev Abrahamyan in a very fine attacking game with Black. Annie Wang scored the only victory for the American team, as she inflicted Polina Shuvalova her first defeat in the event: Wang came out of the opening with better development and the pair of bishops, and soon she was one pawn up. The game between Alexander Grischuk and Wesley So was a very solid and almost irrelevant affair, and in the two other games, both teams made important concessions: Esipenko was much better against Xiong, but 29.Kf1 was an inaccuracy that blew away his advantage, and he had to settle for a draw. On the other hand, Sam Shankland played a fantastic game against Daniil Dubov and transposed into a winning endgame, but blundered when he was already very close to promoting his passed c-pawn. Somehow, Samuel missed an easy move, 62.Bf4+, that would have won on the spot. Russia’s second board, Ian Nepomniachtchi. PHOTO: David Llada The second match was a fight to the death, where not a single draw was signed, and yet it ended in a tie as both teams scored three victories each. In a do-or-die situation, Wesley So showed his A-game and defeated Alexander Grischuk in a very interesting battle, imbalanced in terms of structure and material. Shankland, with Black, played and ambitious and risky move, 13…Ke7, leaving his King in the center. Black looked just fine, but Ian Nepomniachtchi maneuvered to open some files for his heavy pieces, and when he finally did the relatively exposed Black King fell in a deadly trap. Goaryachkina opted for the Caro–Kann with Black, but the resulting position was as sharp as if she had played a Sicilian. It was a double-edged game with plenty of complications, but White had the upper hand and, when the dust settled, Carissa Yip emerged two pawns up in a simple endgame. On the sixth board, Polina Shuvalova was slightly worse in her game against Annie Wang, but the American player suddenly collapsed and allowed the white knight to came out from the corner and destroy Black’s position. Andrey Esipenko achieved a clear advantage (almost decisive at some point), but probably he should have solved his back rank problems with 29…Re8 first, before going for the kill. He didn’t do so and, as a result, Jeffery Xiong found some ingenious tricks that not only allowed him to save the game but gave him the full point. Alexandra Kosteniuk won the decisive game against the USA. PHOTO: David Llada The hero of the day for the Russian team was Alexandra Kosteniuk. The Queen of Russian Chess scored her second win of the day, and both victories were decisive: the first one allowed Russia to win the match, and the second one secured the draw that promoted Russia into the Final against India. Match 1: Russia – USA 3½:2½ Grischuk ½-½ SoDubov ½-½ ShanklandGoryachkina 1-0 ZatonskihKosteniuk 1-0 AbrahamyanEsipenko ½-½ XiongShuvalova 0-1 Wang Match 2: USA – Russia 3:3 So 1-0 GrischukShankland 0-1 NepomniachtchiYip 1-0 GoryachkinaZatonskih 0-1 KosteniukXiong 1-0 EsipenkoWang 0-1 Shuvalova India beats Poland to become the first finalist of the Online Chess Olympiad. India’s rival will come out of the clash between Russia and the USA. It wasn’t an easy match for the winners, who had to come from behind after losing 4-2 in the first round. Jan-Krzysztof Duda managed to out-prepare Vishy Anand on the black side of a Sicilian and came out of the opening with a solid positional advantage that he didn’t fail to convert. Vidit played very aggressively with black, resolutely advancing his h-pawn all the way to h3 and creating some problems to Radek Wojtaszek. However, after the Indian missed an interesting tactical solution (21…Rxe3) White contained the attack, the advanced pawn was captured, and the Polish GM took the whole point. India seemed to have good chances of tying the match thanks to their last two boards, where both Nihal Sarin and Divya Desmukh had better positions. But only Sarin managed to win his game, while Deshmukh fell into time trouble, ruined her little advantage and lost. It is not easy to bounce back right after a defeat, but that’s exactly what India did in the second round of the day, winning on-demand to level the match. Poland decided to replace Wojtaszek for the second round, maybe with the hope to surprise the Indians and avoid Vidit’s preparation, so it was Grzegorz Gajewski who played on board two. Out of the opening, the position was about equal, but the black king was more exposed and that tends to be an important factor in rapid chess. Vidit played 18.f4, went for the kill, and scored the whole point. Humpy Koneru completely outplayed Monika Socko, and Harika Dronavalli managed to defeat Karina Cyfka in an endgame where her Bishop was stronger than Black’s knight. Vishy Anand took his revenge against Duda although by this time the match was already decided in India’s favor. The final score was 4½-1½ for India. Koneru Humpy won the decisive Armageddon game against Poland Photo: David Llada The match came down to the Armageddon tie-break where, like in the last of the quarterfinals played yesterday, Monika Socko had to represent the whole Polish team, fighting against Humpy Koneru for the spot in the finals. It was a fantastic clash between two experienced players and probably
India, Russia, USA and Poland advance to semifinals
Match 1: 3½-2½Match 2: India wins by default The first match of the day turned out to be a very eventful one, with a very unfortunate outcome. The first game to come to an end was the clash of the giants – Vishy Anand and Levon Aronian They played until only the bare kings where left on the board and split a point. Humpy Koneru pressed too hard in an equal endgame and lost, while Lilit Mkrtchian fell for a little tactical trick and lost to Harika Dronavalli. It was in this moment when, in barely five minutes, a lot of unexpected things happened: Vankita Agrawal overlooked a double-check which cost her a rook, Gabriel Sargissian blundered his Queen in the most spectacular fashion, and in the decisive moment, Haik Martirosyan got disconnected when he only had 53 seconds left on his clock, losing on time. This left the final score at 3½-2½ for the Indian team. Following the disconnection of Haik Martirosyan, the Armenian team filed an official appeal that was rejected by the Appeals Committee, formed by the FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, Michael Khodarkovsky, and Sava Stoisavljevic. Not satisfied with this decision, Armenia defaulted the second match, and as a result, India is through to the semifinals. You can read the Appeals Committee resolution here. Match 1: 5-1Match 2: 3-3 Russia was just too strong for Hungary in their first match, winning by a convincing score: 5-1. Viktor Erdos made a fatal mistake against an attacking player like Ian Nepomniachtchi: playing Black, he didn’t castle on time. As soon as Ian got the chance (16…Nh5?) broke through in the center, launched a smashing attack, and quickly scored a victory. Dubov and Esipenko drew their games, but the Russian ladies did the rest of the work to round up the result: Goryachkina, Kosteniuk, and Shuvalova took home three points. The second match was kind of a moral victory for Hungary, which proved to be a very worthy quarter-finalist. The Hungarians say goodbye to the Online Olympiad after a 3-3 draw against Russia. Nepomiachtich won again, this time with the black pieces and against a different rival: Tamas Banusz instead of Viktor Erdos. On the sixth board, Polina Shuvalova demonstrated one more time that there are not many girls in her age group who can play at her level. Polina was the 2019 World Girls U-20 Champion, as well as the World Girl’s U18 Champion in 2018 and 2019, and her results in the Online Olympiad show why. However, for the second match, the Russian team decided to field Lagno and Gunina instead of Kosteniuk and Goryachkina, and these substitutions didn’t work quite well. Both Russian stars lost to Petra Papp and Ticia Gara, who turned in an excellent performance. Match 1: 4½-1½Match 2: 4-2 Vassily Ivanchuk is always unpredictable, and today it wasn’t one of his good days. He went for a French defense against Wesley So, came out of the opening with a worse position, and then simply lost on time on move 27. The game between Anton Korobov and Sam Shankland was a spectacular battle, but it ended in a draw. Carissa Yip and Annie Wang sealed the result in favor of the American team, beating Julia Osmak and Mariia Berdnyk, respectively. The second match didn’t go much better for the Ukrainians. This time they decided to play without Ivanchuk, but nevertheless the lost on the first board, where Wesley So proved to be stronger than Anton Korobov, despite playing with Black. The game between Shankland and Shtembuliak looked balanced, but as soon as the complications arose, Samuel showed his class and outplayed his young opponent. Annie Wang scored another decisive point for her team, against Nadiia Shpanko. For the second time in a row, Kirill Shevchenko drew against Jeffery Xiong, but the way he did it, with a very beautiful resource (31.Bg7!), only reinforces his candidacy as the most valuable player of the Online Olympiad 2020. Match 1: 4-2Match 2: 1½-4½(Poland wins the tie-break) Very much like it happened yesterday in preliminary round Poland was unstoppable in the top two boards. Jan-Krzysztof Duda extended his streak to a sensational 10/11, beating Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in a very fine game with the black pieces. His level of play and accuracy could be comparable to what you would expect from a game played under classical time control. Wojtaszek – Mamedov was a great fight, where the Azerbaijani player had an absolutely winning position at some point (apparently Radoslaw overlooked 29…Rxf3), but then lost the thread of the game and missed not only a win but even a draw. Gulnar Mammadova went all-in to the attack against Karina Cyfka, correctly sacrificing a knight to leave the white King naked and exposed but was not precise enough – Karina consolidated her position and forced a Queen exchange: with this, the game and the first match was over, but the quarterfinals – not yet! Azerbaijan added some drama to the last clash of the day, striking back in the second match, which they won by a wide margin: 4½-1½. To begin with, this time Radjabov played on the first board, and that helped to hold the unstoppable Duda to a draw. On the rest of the boards, Azerbaijan scored one point after another: Radek Wojtaszek, Monika Socko, Karina Cyfka, and Szymon Gumularz, they all lost. It was the young Alicja Sliwicka the only player to score a full point for the Polish team: her first victory in the event so far. The Armageddon game was a face-off between the two top women of both teams, Monika Socko and Gunay Mammadzada, with the 7-time Polish champion playing White. As it is expected under the circumstances, Monika played very aggressively, and we could say that Black came out of the opening slightly better, but White succeeded in creating some complications. In the end, the opponents reached a balanced endgame, but somehow Gunay missed some obvious moves and got entangled in a basic mating net. With just a couple second left on her clock, Monika checkmated her opponent and Poland got the ticket to the semifinals.