GM Levon Aronian blundered a bit towards 607-point-lower-rated FM Andre Mendez, however nonetheless went on to win as top-seed U.S.A. claimed a 3.5-0.5 victory over Panama—GM Wesley So‘s stable draw value him a spot within the top-10. Not one of the prime seeds dropped greater than half some extent in spherical one of many forty fifth FIDE Chess Olympiad, however GMs Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Nodirbek Yakubboev, and Aryan Tari have been all fortunate to scrape attracts.
The highest groups additionally prevailed within the Girls’s forty fifth FIDE Chess Olympiad, with almost each one among them scoring 4-0 wins.
Spherical two of the 2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad begins on Thursday, September 12Â at 9 a.m. ET/15:00 CEST/6:30 p.m. IST.
Open Part: Aronian Leads The Swindlers
On the floor, spherical one of many 2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad was all the things you’ll anticipate. The beginning of the huge spectacle suffered delays, prime stars comparable to GMs Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, and Gukesh Dommarju have been rested by their groups, and the favorites gained in all places you seemed.
You needed to go all the way down to the thirtieth match to discover a dropping workforce that gained a sport towards the winners—Mozambique’s Joao Farisse (1851) beat Danish FM Jens Ramsdal (2328).
There have been some grandmaster casualties: Australian GM Bobby Cheng went for a flawed queen sacrifice towards Saudi Arabian FM Ahmed AlRehily, Faroe Islands GM Helgi Dam Ziska appeared to lose on time in a successful place towards 1982-rated Mathurin Nathaniel from St. Lucia, whereas Icelandic GM Gudmundur Kjartansson fell for a trick when he pushed his b-pawn two squares towards 14-year-old FM Xavier Mompel Ferruz from Equatorial Guinea.
The upsets have been few and much between, nonetheless, with no underdog workforce scoring greater than some extent out of 4. A quiet spherical? By no means! We have been a transfer (or draw supply) or two away from quite a lot of sensations.
Essentially the most spectacular turnaround got here for Aronian, a three-time Olympiad-winner for Armenia who’s now representing the highest seed, U.S.A. He may primarily have resigned towards his teenage opponent from Panama when his 12…Qc7? was met by 13.g4!. Â
Levon Aronian appears busted towards a participant he outrates by 607 factors! https://t.co/xGInxuGtiY #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/yPEYalNoAJ
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 11, 2024
If the knight strikes, Nd6+! wins the home, so after a sobering 17-minute assume Aronian performed 13…Qb7 and left the knight to its destiny. The scenario ought to have been hopeless, however the former world number-two discovered a method not simply to flee however to win.
Andre Mendez gained a bit towards 607-point higher-rated Levon Aronian however Tremendous-GMs are robust — Levon pulled off a swindle and went on to win with a checkmating assault! https://t.co/xGInxuH18w #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/AzfaCUG2a9
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 11, 2024
That will have felt unfair to his teammate So, who made an expert draw on top-board and was punished by the lack of 4 ranking factors and falling from tenth to thirteenth on the reside ranking checklist. 54-year-old Viswanathan Anand is again within the top-10, for now!Â
Mamedyarov dropped out of the top-20 with a draw, although it may have been a lot worse for the legendary attacking participant who has been placed on board 4 to rack up factors towards considerably weaker opponents. 1994-rated Jordanian teenager Anas Khwaira may have been his nemesis, after recognizing some superb middlegame ways. The Jordan workforce chief defined the trick—and why you should not underestimate the teenager.
What did Mamedyarov miss? Jordan prime board GM Ahmad Al-Khatib explains the successful transfer his 1994-rated teammate Anas Khwaira discovered earlier than finally making a draw! https://t.co/4jMzsXRWKT #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/k9d5L2TjZt
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 11, 2024
The sport would fizzle out, nonetheless, because the 739-point lower-rated participant determined to take a draw on the finish, ready the place he was nonetheless a full trade up for no compensation.
We noticed the identical finish when Yakubboev, taking part in for the defending champion Uzbekistan, stumbled into some deadly opening principle towards 500-point-lower-rated FM Quinn Cabralis from Trinidad & Tobago.
Gajewski’s LTR 1.e4 @chessable course giving some good leads to the #ChessOlympiad! https://t.co/4kbUUXK9Zq a 2169 participant with an enormous benefit vs Yakubboev 2666! pic.twitter.com/HnFizurJpw
— Juan Almaguer (@J_Almaguer) September 11, 2024
A real sensation briefly seemed attainable as teammate FM Kevin Cupid was additionally successful, however that sport quickly turned towards the islanders, earlier than Cabralis took a draw by repetition ready that the all-seeing laptop assesses as successful for him.
One participant who did not stumble into bother however sought it out is GM Arjun Erigaisi, the world number-four and the Indian board-three. In opposition to FM Jacques Elbilia he went for a piece-sac that horrifies computer systems, however to nobody’s nice shock he prevailed within the problems.
That win, which helped India to a 4-0 victory over Morocco, is our Recreation of the Day, and has been analyzed by GM Rafael Leitao under.Â
It was an action-packed spherical, which ended with GM Anish GIri drawing water from a stone to win the longest sport of the day.Â
It took 6 hours, however Anish Giri lastly wins to present the Netherlands a 4-0 win over Lebanon! https://t.co/6r6zKAHwh9 #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/frx4at0fTY
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 11, 2024
It will get lots more durable in spherical two, as we get grandmasters assembly in all the highest match-ups.
2024 Chess Olympiad Spherical 2 Workforce Pairings: Open (Prime 15)
| No. | SNo | FED | Workforce | Res. | : | Res. | Workforce | FED | SNo |
| 1 | 1 | United States of America | : | Singapore | 45 | ||||
| 2 | 9 | Hungary *) | : | Peru | 53 | ||||
| 3 | 46 | Iceland | : | India | 2 | ||||
| 4 | 3 | China | : | Chile | 47 | ||||
| 5 | 48 | Egypt | : | Uzbekistan | 4 | ||||
| 6 | 5 | Netherlands | : | Belgium | 49 | ||||
| 7 | 50 | Canada | : | Norway | 6 | ||||
| 8 | 7 | Germany | : | Philippines | 51 | ||||
| 9 | 52 | Mexico | : | England | 8 | ||||
| 10 | 54 | Portugal | : | Iran | 10 | ||||
| 11 | 11 | Poland | : | Hungary C | 55 | ||||
| 12 | 56 | Finland | : | Azerbaijan | 12 | ||||
| 13 | 13 | Spain | : | Bosnia & Herzegovina | 57 | ||||
| 14 | 58 | Paraguay | : | France | 14 | ||||
| 15 | 15 | Ukraine | : | Uruguay | 59 |
There are nonetheless 15 unpaired groups on the backside of the standings, as a result of visa and journey points. Zoltan Polyanszky, President of the Hungarian Chess Federation, mentioned “We did lots to get groups to Budapest,” and added that different groups have been nonetheless on their method: “I wish to ask one-two days of persistence. This can be a downside of the Schengen space.”
FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich backed that up: “The conventional rejection price for Schengen visas is 16.5 p.c. Our rejection price is considerably decrease.”
Girls’s Part: Favorites Thrive
Aside from a number of particular person half-points misplaced, the favourite groups prevailed in spherical one. The next groups completed the day with 4-0 begins: Georgia, Poland, China, Azerbaijan, United States, Germany, Spain, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Bulgaria, France, England, Turkiye, the Netherlands, Mongolia, Vietnam, Romania, and Italy.Â
There’s a 75-year distinction between the beginning years of the oldest and youngest gamers within the Girls’s event. The oldest participant is Pauline Woodward (Guernsey), born in 1940, whereas there are 5 gamers who have been born in 2015.
- Arianna Balcombe (St. Vincent and the Grenadines)
- Skye Attieh (Lebanon)
- WFM Bodhana Sivanandan (England)
- Tauriel A.B. Frank (Grenada)
- Ginger Jubitana (Netherlands Antilles)
9-year-old Sivanandan is the highest-rated of the group at 2196, with the world under-eight champion title below her belt.
9-year-old Bodhana shares her ideas about spending time with Judit Polgar, what taking part in on the Olympiad means to her, and that she appears ahead to taking part in chess!#ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/p4INZZlAeC
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 11, 2024
In each version of the Olympiad, many groups sport colourful and infrequently artistic uniforms or conventional clothes. You may see a number of of them within the pictures under.
There are two obtrusive units of absences among the many prime international locations within the Girls’s event. First, China is lacking its prime 4 gamers: three world champions, GMs Hou Yifan, Ju Wenjun, Tan Zhongyi, and former World Championship Challenger Lei Tingjie. Regardless of that, they’re the fourth seed and 14-year-old WGM Lu Miaoyi (rated 2438) makes her debut because the reigning Chinese language girls’s nationwide champion.Â
The opposite notable absence is Ukraine’s top-two gamers who led the workforce to successful gold on the final Olympiad, the identical 12 months it was invaded by Russia. This time, Ukraine is fifth seed, and the gamers are IM Yulia Osmak, GM Anna Ushenina, IM Nataliya Buksa, IM Inna Gaponenko, and WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova.
The highest workforce is India once more, adopted by Georgia after which Poland. GM Vaishali Rameshabu performed on board one on the primary day as GM Harika Dronavalli, the second highest-rated participant within the event after Georgian GM Nana Dzagnidze, sat out. Two younger stars make their debut on the workforce, IMs Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal, whereas IM Tania Sachdev returns.Â
India did not make it to the checklist of groups successful 4-0 matches, as WFM Raehanna Brown held Vantika to a attract a queen endgame. Tania gained the nicest sport; beginning with 17.c4, her assault by no means misplaced steam.
Georgia was the primary of the highest groups to complete the day and so they did so with 4 convincing wins. With a 20-move miniature, IM Lela Javakhishvili confirmed that the London System has some tooth, in case anybody nonetheless held any doubt. There is a saying that with a knight on f8 there is no such thing as a mate, however this sport proved to be an exception.
One workforce to be careful for that is decrease on the general checklist is Sweden, thirty third seed, the place mom and daughter GM Pia and WFM Anna Cramling play side-by-side, and the daddy GM Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez is the workforce captain. In spherical one, Anna gained her sport earlier than her mom did and Sweden total beat Fiji 4-0. Anna instructed FM Mike Klein earlier than the sport: “There’s the hearth inside me to win and I feel I’ve that also from my aggressive chess period.”
What’s it like having your dad as a workforce captain? @AnnaCramling tells @ChessMike!#ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/g6PsD0pdUx
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 11, 2024
GM Hikaru Nakamura recapped that sport and extra of the day’s motion:
Thursday will function India vs. the Czech Republic on the highest board, a mean workforce ranking of 2467 towards 2149. You may see the opposite pairings within the checklist under.
2024 Chess Olympiad Spherical 2 Workforce Pairings: Girls (Prime 15)
| Board | SNo | FED | Workforce | : | Workforce | FED | SNo | ||
| 1 | 1 | India | : | Czech Republic | 41 | ||||
| 2 | 54 | Ecuador | : | Hungary *) | 14 | ||||
| 3 | 42 | Montenegro | : | Georgia | 2 | ||||
| 4 | 3 | Poland | : | Brazil | 43 | ||||
| 5 | 44 | Colombia | : | China | 4 | ||||
| 6 | 5 | Ukraine | : | Lithuania | 45 | ||||
| 7 | 46 | Australia | : | Azerbaijan | 6 | ||||
| 8 | 7 | United States of America | : | Philippines | 47 | ||||
| 9 | 48 | Belgium | : | Germany | 8 | ||||
| 10 | 9 | Spain | : | Hungary C | 49 | ||||
| 11 | 50 | Finland | : | Kazakhstan | 10 | ||||
| 12 | 11 | Armenia | : | Mexico | 51 | ||||
| 13 | 52 | Egypt | : | Bulgaria | 12 | ||||
| 14 | 13 | France | : | Luxembourg | 53 | ||||
| 15 | 15 | England | : | Denmark | 55 |
NM Anthony Levin contributed reporting to this text.
The forty fifth FIDE Chess Olympiad is an enormous workforce occasion for nationwide federations that takes place each two years. In 2024 it is being held in Budapest, Hungary, with 11 rounds that run September 11-22. In Open and Girls’s sections groups of 5 gamers compete in a Swiss Open, with every match performed over 4 boards. There are two match factors for a win and one for a draw, with board factors solely taken into consideration if groups are tied. Gamers have 90 minutes per sport, plus half-hour from transfer 40, with a 30-second increment per transfer.
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