India A Women’s team held to a draw by Ukraine but retains the lead
The India Women A Team victory march was halted with a 2-2 draw against second seed Ukraine, the squad boasting of two former Women World Champions, Mariya Muzychuk and Anna Ushenina. All the four encounters ended in deadlock, and India A continues to be in charge of the sole lead with 15 points while Georgia has inched closer, sitting on 14 points. Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan and Mongolia are bunched together in the third spot with 13 points each. Just like Gukesh D in the open section, WIM Oliwia Kiolbasa (pictured below) of Poland also scored a fantastic 8/8 in the Women’s competition. The encounter between former Women’s World Chess Champion Mariya Muzychuk and Humpy Koneru was much-awaited, and the former opted for the Nimzo Indian defence. After the massive exchanges, the opponents ended up in a rook and four pawns each drawish ending and signed peace on move 40. Anna Muzychuk unleashed the prehistoric Italian Greco gambit against Harika Dronavalli on the second board. Harika played sensibly to complete development and quickly extinguished White’s initiative. She had a good chance for advantage in the ending, but Anna found a way out in a pawn down opposite colour bishop ending and forced a draw on the move 49. Vaishali R countered the Petroff Defence by Anna Ushenina with the Nimzowitsh attack but failed to gain any initiative. She slipped to a slightly inferior ending after simplifications and had to demonstrate good calculation and understanding of Rook endings to hold off Anna. Tania Sachdev and Nataliya Buksa played out a Ruy Lopez, which also failed to excite the spectators. The game petered out to a draw by repetition after massive exchanges on the queenside. India C Team, seeded 16th, were no match for fourth-seeded Poland and went down 1-3. India B team seeded 11th, defeated Croatia 3.5-0.5, with Vantika Agrawal, Padmini Rout and Divya Deshmukh scoring victories and Mary Ann Gomes conceding a draw. Complete results for round 8 can be found at the official website for the Olympiad, https://chessolympiad.fide.com/women-results. Standings after round 8 can be found at https://chessolympiad.fide.com/women-standings Photo: Photo: Lennart Ootes, Mark Livshitz and Stev Bonhage
44th Chess Olympiad: USA toppled by Indian teenagers
Armenia leads the Olympiad after eight rounds From the outside, it’s always very difficult to speculate on what may be happening to the USA team, but it’s clear that they are not going through their best moment. Despite having the best team on paper by quite a margin, none of their players seem to be in great shape, and Fabiano Caruana in particular, is unrecognizable. This afternoon they suffered a clear and resounding defeat against India’s B team by 3-1. Caruana and Dominguez lost against Gukesh and Sadhwani, while the other two games ended in draws after a very complicated play. GM Noel Studer summed it nicely on social media minutes after the round ended: Gukesh notched up his eighth victory in a row – with an impressive 3366 rating performance – and has overtaken Pentala Harikrishna on the live rating list, becoming India’s number two player behind Vishy Anand. It seems that the sky is the limit for the kid! Although the game was mentally demanding, he still had enough energy to answer some questions in the media center, stating above all that “Fabiano is one of my favourite players and it was a pleasure to play against him”. The round began with the ceremonial first move on Women’s Section number two match between Georgia and Armenia. We were honoured to receive the visit by Mr Mikheil Chkhenkeli, Georgian Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, along with Mr. Archil Dzuliashvili, Georgia’s Indian Ambassador. On the other Women’s match between India and Ukraine, Mr Iraianbu IAS, Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu, played the first move. In the other main match of the day, Armenia made a huge step towards the medal by defeating India A by the slightest of margins. Three of the games were drawn, but Sargissian managed to convert a small edge in the ending against Harikrishna on board one. All the Armenian players are overperforming – first board Sargissian is on a roll – but reserve player Robert Hovhannisyan is smashing the winning button on board four with an undefeated score of 6.5/8. After eight of the eleven scheduled rounds, Armenia is leading the open section of the Olympiad with 15 points, followed very closely by India B with 14 points. Also, on 14 points are another teenager team, Uzbekistan, who closed the gap this afternoon by defeating Germany by 2.5-1.5 – a tremendous result for the young team coached by seasoned GM Ivan Sokolov. The match was heavily contested on all four boards, but the Uzbek team pulled ahead on board two when Yakubboev defeated Bluebaum. The other three games were drawn. Azerbaijan and the Netherlands are the other two teams that, along with Iran, are inching closer to the top of the standings to fight for the medals in the later rounds. The team led by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov – who rested today – got rid of Kazakhstan by the minimum result. Iran defeated France by the same result, while the Netherlands took down Hungary convincingly with victories by Giri and Warmerdam. Born in 2000, the young Dutchman has gained more than 100 rating points since the pandemic and is in top form in Chennai. He was kind enough to answer some questions in a short postgame interview, offering some great insight on how they prepare the matches – a team effort. On a positive note, Jergus Pechac received this afternoon the 2021 Gligoric Trophy in recognition of his exemplary behaviour and fair play spirit. The Slovak GM offered a draw to Boris Gelfand after the latter had erred due to a mouse slip, during the European Qualification Tournament, held in a hybrid format. FIDE Vice President Mahir Mamedov and GM Eugene Torre, who chaired the Award Commission together with Judit Polgar, awarded Jerguš before the start of the 8th round. Visibly pleased with the award, Pechac also held World Champion Magnus Carlsen to a draw: a fine afternoon for the Slovac. Round 9 will be played August 7th at 3pm sharp and can be followed live on the tournament website. For a complete list of results, please visit the official website at https://chessolympiad.fide.com/open-results/ Text: IM Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer, Chennai Photos: Lennart Ootes, Mark Livshitz and Stev Bonhage