Upsets and Would-Be Upsets • lichess.org

September 12, 2024

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Event Data

Details about the schedule, Lichess broadcast, and Lichess stream protection can all be present in our preview article.

Overview (Open)

Visa points made it troublesome for some groups to make it to the Olympiad; we hope that these points will probably be resolved and the lacking groups will have the ability to play. Particularly, the refugees crew, which is taking part for the primary time, shouldn’t be enjoying due to Visa difficulties. As is common in Olympiads, the highest gamers want to preserve power, so they do not play the primary sport. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Dommaraju Gukesh, and Ding Liren weren’t enjoying at this time. An action-packed day noticed upsets and would-be upsets, however, total, the highest groups prevailed.

The high 10 groups gained with out an excessive amount of problem, although some groups did drop half some extent. Wesley So (2752) of the US drew Roberto Carlos Sanchez Alvarez (2376) of Panama, Nodirbek Yakubboev (2666) of Uzbekistan drew Quinn Cabralis (2169) of Trinidad & Tobago, Aryan Tari (2642) of Norway drew Hongjin Ahn (2251) of South Korea, Dmitrij Kollars (2659) of Germany drew Fy Antenaina Rakotomaharo (2440) of Madagascar, David W L Howell (2677) of England drew Raymond Track (2503) of Chinese language Taipei, and Sina Movahed (2528) of Iran drew Mohan Kavin (1997) of Malaysia. Upsets are the spice of Olympiads, and the primary spherical of the 2024 Budapest Olympiad didn’t disappoint in any respect as a number of upsets and would-be upsets occurred.

The Greatest Upsets (Video games)

The largest upset of this spherical must be 17-year-old Anas Khwaira holding Shakhriyar Mamedyarov to a draw from a greater place. Mamedyarov was compelled to sacrifice the alternate, after which, as Anas recounts, Mamedyarov supplied a draw. Anas is aware of the age-old rule Rosen talked about, although, and declined the draw, solely accepting the draw a lot later when he was in time bother. An exceptional outcome for a younger participant and positively one he’ll cherish for a very long time to return.

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Mamedyarov was not happy!
Photograph: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com

There have been many different drawn upsets.

Two notable upset victories, the place untitled gamers beat grandmasters, included Ahmed Abdullah S Alrehaili‘s (2117) (of Saudi Arabia) win in opposition to Bobby Cheng (2588) of Australia and Nathaniel Mathurin‘s (1982) (of Saint Lucia) win in opposition to Helgi Dam Ziska (2553) of Faroe Islands. Joao Farisse (1851) of Mozambique additionally defeated Jens Albert Ramsdal (2328) of Denmark (sport), and Abner Farquhar (1678) of Antigua and Barbuda emerged victorious in opposition to David Alejandro Cabezas Solano (2248) of Costa Rica (sport).

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Honorable Mentions

Levon Aronian (2729) is among the most artistic chess gamers of all time and is ranked #4 on the best ever classical rankings checklist; nonetheless, typically his genius involves chew him as he was merely a bit down in opposition to Andre Mendez Machado (2122) of Panama. Chess superfans would possibly keep in mind that Aronian was additionally dropping in spherical 1 of the 2022 Chennai Olympiad, although he did find yourself drawing that sport. He was capable of do higher this yr and even gained his misplaced sport after he castled on reverse sides of the board and complex the sport.

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Arjun Erigaisi (2778) was additionally dropping in some unspecified time in the future in opposition to his opponent, Jacques Elbilia (2343) of Morocco. He did discover a method to flip issues round, although.

For different vastly underrated gamers, lots of them managed to make it to a dry, equalish endgame in opposition to their very robust opponents. Sadly for them, they may not handle to carry the place. A number of of those video games:

Amro El Jawich in opposition to Anish Giri
Photograph: Michal Walusza/FIDE

Lichess streamer Mafaaz Khalid (2069) (Artwork-Vega) of Pakistan was additionally equal for a very long time in opposition to Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria, however in the end misplaced.

The Greatest Upsets (Groups)

There have been no upsets by way of crew scores. The favorites at worst scored 3 wins and 1 loss; the ranking favorites by no means misplaced and there was no 2.5/1.5 victory — aside from Vanuatu, whose crew of unrated gamers gained 2.5/1.5 in opposition to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This lack of crew upsets is to be anticipated as within the first spherical, the stronger groups are paired with the weaker ones, so huge rankings mismatches happen.

Sensible Video games

Johan-Sebastian Christiansen of Norway sacrificed his queen in opposition to Junhyeok Lee of South Korea.

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Haik M. Martirosyan of Armenia performed a strong assault in opposition to Colin Tempo of Malta.

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Spherical 2 Pairings

Staff	Staff
United States of America	Singapore
Hungary	Peru
Iceland	India
China	Chile
Egypt	Uzbekistan
Netherlands	Belgium
Canada	Norway

The pairings are by no means straightforward for the highest groups, as, for instance, Singapore has two GMs, an FM, and a CM, whereas Peru has a 2600 GM, two IMs, and a 2390-rated untitled participant.