8/30/2020 – India and Russia defeated Poland and the United States respectively to reach the final of the 2020 FIDE Online Olympiad. After losing the first mini-match, India came back with a convincing win in the second. In the Armageddon decider, Humpy Koneru comfortably defeated Monika Socko to give her team overall victory. Meanwhile, the Russians defeated USA in the first mini-match and drew the second encounter to advance to the final. | Pictured: Humpy Koneru and Alexandra Kosteniuk | Photos: Austin Fuller / Russian Chess Federation
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India wins in Armageddon
Both semifinals were extremely hard-fought matches. India started the day with a 2:4 loss against the strong Polish team, with both top boards — Vishy Anand and Vidit Gujrathi — losing their games. The Indians seemed to have done something in “half-time” though, as they came back with all guns blazing to even the score with a remarkable 4½:1½ victory in the second mini-match of the day, in which incidentally both top boards mentioned above won their games.
It all came down to Armageddon. Each team had to choose one of their female representatives to play a single game that would decide the fate of the whole match. Poland chose the experienced Monika Socko, while India went with the ever-calm Humpy Koneru. The Indian had the black pieces and kept things under control throughout, keeping an eye on the clock while restricting her opponent’s attacking chances. Humpy ended up winning the game.
The ChessBase India team had elite stars Anish Giri and Teimour Radjabov as special guests in their webcast of the semis. They joined Sagar Shah, Amruta Mokal, Adhiban Baskaran and comedian Samay Raina to commentate on the games while supporting the Indian team. This is how they lived the exciting sudden-death decider:
Sagar Shah shows you on this DVD how you can use typical patterns used by the Master of the past in your own games. From opening play to middlegame themes.
Sagar later talked to team captain Vidit, who praised Humpy for her demeanour during the tense final game, although her doing that did not surprise anybody, as the world’s number two is known for her coolness and composure:
Considered a master of prophylaxis, Petrosian sensed dangers long before they actually became acute on the board. In his prime, Petrosian was almost invincible. Let our authors introduce you into the world of Tigran Petrosian.
The second semifinal was played hours later and was a tension-filled encounter. In the end, it was a single point that gave Russia victory. In the first mini-match, the American Annie Wang defeated Polina Shuvalova on the girls’ board, but victories for Aleksandra Goryachkina and Alexandra Kosteniuk meant the Russian had won the mini-match by the smallest of margins.
United States went all-in in the second mini-match, which led to all six games finishing decisively — White won on all boards! While Shuvalova levelled her personal score against Wang by winning their second encounter of the day, it was Kosteniuk who got 2 out of 2 on Saturday for Russia.
Very likely the final will be a hard-fought confrontation, with the Indian team extremely motivated by the huge following online looking for them to get a first gold in an Olympiad. Nonetheless, they will be facing a Russian squad with strong representatives on all boards — they have Grischuk, Nepomniachtchi, Artemiev and Dubov on the men’s boards; Goryachkina, Kosteniuk, Lagno and Gunina on the women’s; Esipenko most likely to play both games on the juniors’; and a very strong Shuvalova on the girls’ board. As pointed out by Sagar Shah, the Russians are the favourites, but India is surely capable of beating even the strongest team in the world, especially when the stakes are so high.
The final kicks off at 11:00 UTC (13:00 CEST, 16:30 IST).
Carlos Alberto ColodroCarlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
In this course, you’ll learn how to take the initiative against the London and prevent White from comfortably playing their usual system by playing 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 Nh5.
London System Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains in all 11 285 games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 282 are annotated.
The London System Powerbook 2026 is based on more than 410 000 games or game fragments from different opening moves and ECO codes; what they all have in common is that White plays d4 and Bf4 but does not play c4.
In this course, Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz presents the London System, a structured and ambitious approach based on the immediate Bf4, leading to rich and dynamic positions.
Opening videos: Open Spanish (Sipke Ernst) and Classical Sicilian (Nico Zwirs). Endgame Special by Igor Stohl: ‘Short or long side’ – where should the defending king be placed in rook endgames? ‘Lucky bag’ with 35 master analyses.
YOUR EASY ACCESS TO OPENING THEORY: Whether you want to build up a reliable and powerful opening repertoire or find new opening ideas for your existing repertoire, the Opening Encyclopaedia covers the entire opening theory on one product.
The Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation with 5.Bf4 has a great balance between positional play and sharp pawn pushes; and will be a surprise for your opponents while being easy to learn for you, as the key patterns are familiar.
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Both semifinals were extremely hard-fought matches. India started the day with a 2:4 loss against the strong Polish team, with both top boards — Vishy Anand and Vidit Gujrathi — losing their games. The Indians seemed to have done something in “half-time” though, as they came back with all guns blazing to even the score with a remarkable 4½:1½ victory in the second mini-match of the day, in which incidentally both top boards mentioned above won their games.
