The 40th Chess Olympiad is taking place in the Turkish metropole of Istanbul, from August 27 to September 10th, 2012. A record of 158 national chess federations have brought teams to Istanbul to participate in this prestigious event, which is being staged in the WOW Hotel and Convention Center, just minutes away from the airport.

Round eight

Russia made a huge step in their quest for the first gold medal since 2002 as they beat the defending champion and one of the main rivals, the team of Ukraine. Sergey Karjakin woke up in the perfect moment to outplay his former team-mate Andrei Volokitin and earn the key victory for Russia.

Russia with Grischuk and Kramnik vs Ukraine with Ponomariov and Ivanchuk

The two games in which the Ukrainians played white pieces were balanced and eventually drawn. Vassily Ivanchuk earned a pawn against Vladimir Kramnik and kept attempting to win in order to even the score. Kramnik's task was made easier by the fact that all pawns were grouped only on the king's flank. The former World Champion provided a much needed draw for the final 2.5-1.5 victory in favour of Russia.

Azerbaijan vs China, with Taimour Radjabov playing Wang Hao on board one

China took an early lead against Azerbaijan as Ding Liren beat Rauf Mamedov without much trouble. But Shakhriyar Mamedyarov struck back by winning brilliantly against Wang Yue. With the other two boards being drawn, the teams split the points, 2-2.

Armenia walked past Uzbekistan with 3-1, while USA took advantage of another easy pairing to rest Hikaru Nakamura and defeat FYROM 3-1. In the next round USA is matched against Russia on the top table.

Philippines vs England with Wesley So playing Michael Adams on board one

Elo doesn't really play a game in chess, as repeatedly proven by Philippines. The 35th-seed soundly beat the strong team of England by 3-1. Oliver Barbosa on the 2nd and legendary Eugenio Torre on the 3rd board defeated their respective opponents, Gawain Jones and Nigel Short.

Serbia vs India with Ivan Ivanisevic playing Krishnan Sasikiran on board one

Germany and France have scored narrow victories against Hungary and Cuba respectively. India escaped defeat as GN Gopal evened the score against Serbia with a win against Dusan Popovic. Earlier Ivan Ivanisevic beat Krishnan Sasikiran.

Round eight: Top twenty team pairings – Open

Women Section

In round seven Poland fought bravely against the defending champions from Russia but in the eighth round the top seeded China proved to be too strong. With another victory from the World Champion Hou Yifan and the second board GM Zhao Xue playing with renewed spirit, China soundly defeated their opponents with 3-1.

China vs Poland with Hou Yifan playing Monika Socko on board one

Russia was engaged in another epic battle, this time against their neighbors from Ukraine. Anna Ushenina imposed the first defeat to the reigning Russian champion Natalija Pogonina. The next game to finish was the draw between Mariya Muzychuk and Valentina Gunina. In the last move before the time control Natalia Zhukova missed a tactical shot that would have brought her substantial advantage. Instead, Nadezhda Kosintseva continued to gradually improve her position and then a neat trading sequence secured her a winning queens' endgame.

As for the top board, it is sufficient to say that a draw was signed after 157(!) moves! A stubborn defence from Kateryna Lahno finally wore down Tatiana Kosintseva and the Russian player conceded a draw after holding a huge advantage for most of the game. Thus the match ended in a 2-2 tie.

India vs Vietnam, with GM Harika Dronavalli playing Le Thao Nguyen Pham

France defeated their neighbors from Spain with 3-1 to schedule a clash with the powerful China in the next round. India beat Vietnam 2.5-1.5 to make a big leap to the shared second place.

The 35th seed Uzbekistan is also sharing second place, but this shouldn't surprise anymore. The talented and underrated team beat Hungary, after scoring against USA in one of the previous rounds.

Round eight: Top twenty team pairings – Women

Top rankings after eight rounds

• Full rankings: Open – Women

Summaries from the official web site,
photos by David Llada, Arman Karakhanyan, Anastasiya Karlovich

Game of the day commentary by GM Alejandro Ramirez

Choosing a game to annotate is not terribly complicated usually. In a typical round robin, there is a low chance that the maybe five games that happen simultaneously will all produce exciting games. More often than not, there is one game that stands out from the rest and that one gets annotated. The problem with the Olympiad is that there are so many games, that the chance for coolness increases exponentially! My problem today was choosing between several nice games, or doing a series of endgame mistakes (see Karjakin-Volokitin, Wang Yue-Radjabov, Georgiev-Kamsky among others), or this spectacular game. At the end the sheer energy of White's attack, coupled with the fact that I haven't annotated a fourth board game yet, led me to choose this demolition of the KID.

Daniel King: Round 8 Play of the Day: Karjakin vs Volokitin

Andrew Martin: Game of the Day Rd 8: Ding Liren v Mamedov

Summary of round 8 from the official video coverage

Live video coverage of the Olympiad

Remaining schedule of the Olympiad

Some hours after the end of each round we will be posting video summaries by Daniel King on our news page. If possible they will appear on the same night, otherwise early the next morning. We also expect best-game video commentary from Andrew Martin.

Links Official event web site All available games in zipped PGN: Open + Women All ChessBase reports on the Olympiad The top games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.