Chess Olympiad round 4 wrapup

In the 4th round of the World Chess Olympiad the teams of USA and India were paired to play on the first table. Just before the time control India’s leader Krishnan Sasikiran became entangled in the net of Hikaru Nakamura, but Pentala Harikrishna immediately struck back on the 2nd board by defeating Gata Kamsky.

In the other two games the Indians held the minimal positional advantage but this was not sufficient to achieve more than two draws and the match finished in a 2-2 tie.

In one of the derby matches of the whole Olympiad Russia and China played on the 2nd table. Bu Xiangzhi comfortably held Sergey Karjakin with the Petroff defence but Wang Yue erred terribly and fell victim to a knight’s fork.

Dmitry Jakovenko made a positional exchange sacrifice and gradually outplayed the ambitious Li Chao, bringing the decisive advantage in the match to Russia. In the longest game of the match Wang Hao held the inferior position against Kramnik. Final score 3-1 in favour of Russia.

Azerbaijan assumed a 1,5-0,5 lead against Germany before the time control, but the Germans were pressing hard with white in the remaining two games. Eltaj Safarli succeeded in securing the draw, but Gadir Guseinov went down in an opposite-coloured Bishops endgame. The official commentator Evgeniy Miroshnichenko believes that Guseinov could have held the draw with precise play.

France and England have split the points, while Armenia achieved a narrow victory against The Philippines. Levon Aronian praised his opponent Wesley So in an interview after the game.

Ukraine is catching up after the swift 3-1 victory against Poland. Vassily Ivanchuk wins his first game in the Olympiad, while Ruslan Ponomariov beat Mateusz Bartel to avenge the loss from the recent Dortmund super-tournament.

World Correspondence Chess Champion Tunch Hamarat joined the commentators team to provide insights for the Turkish online audience.

In the 4th round of the Women’s section, the Georgian team swept across the match like a hurricane against their Cuban opponents with a 4-0 score, while China fielded World Champion Yifan Hou for the second day in a row, to defeat Germany 3-1.

A French connection existed between the French ladies as they asserted their dominance over Argentina crushing them with a 3,5-0,5 match score and the Russian’s showed the strength and depth of their team by winning convincingly on boards 3 and 4 with the top boards drawing, taking home a 3-1 match win.

Poland and Slovakia could not make headway in their match trading wins on the top and bottom boards with no progress on the middle boards, ending 2-2. Much the same with the US and Slovenia except the top and bottom boards exchanged draws with the middle boards exchanging the wins.

In the last match of the evening, the Serbian team held the Indian team to a draw. On board 1, IM Bojkovic held GM Dronavalli to a 108 move draw with over 70 moves being a dance between kings, queens, and pawns.

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