9/5/2012 – "I promise not to do another Chinese game next round," wrote our GM commentator Alejandro Ramirez, "but this one was so pretty!" He is referring to Ding Liren vs Rauf Mamedov, from the China-Azerbaijan match. Russia increased their lead with a victory over defending champions Armenia, while in the women's section India has move up to second place (behind China). Report with GM commentary.
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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.
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.
IM Almira Skripchenko scored an important win for France...
... as did IM Tania Sachdev for the team from India, who has
won seven games and lost one so far in this Olympiad
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.
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.
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1.d4Nf62.c4g63.Nc3Bg74.e4To be perfectly honest, I don't know if my annotations
are biased or the KID is just doing awfully in the past year. Between Kramnik,
Bacrot and now Ding it seems that all games end in a 1-0.d65.Nf30-06.Be2e57.0-0exd47...Nc68.d5Ne7is of course the main line.8.Nxd4Re89.f3Black is at an important crossroads. He can play c6 with the idea
of d5 later, as Grischuk did last year against Gelfand to score a nice victory,
or play for the dark squares with Nc6. The Azeri contingency almost invariably
play Nc6, though the Chinese champion played c6 himself in a few occasions.Nc610.Be3Nh511.Nc2!This seemingly passive move will be getting a lot
of popularity thanks to this game. The idea is not new, by all means Ding will
be playing the next few moves exactly like Atalik did in 2005. The difference
is that Atalik played it against a 2100 and the game passed by without anyone
really noticing it. Here, Ding uses it to crush Mamedov in an extremely important
Olympiad game.Be5This move seems rather forced as Black has to keep pressuring
the dark squares.12.Nd5!12.Qd2?!Qh412...Bxb213.g4!The
Chinese player blitzed this out. You know your position is dangerous when White
instantly keeps throwing pawns at you.Ng713...Be514.f414.gxh5?Bxh2+15.Kg2Qh4Black should at least have a perpetual somewhere.14...Bxa115.Qxa1Ng716.Nf6+Kh817.Bd2with the subsequent transfer of the bishop
to c3. Black's position is terrible.13...Nf614.Rb1Be515.f4traps
the bishop. This is kind of 'the point'.14.Rb1Bf615.f4Rxe416.g5Be717.Bd3Re618.Bc1!The machine's first choice, but no one will be accusing
the Chinese of using programs during the game any time soon. It is obvious that
this move comes from hard work and a lot of pre-game effort. Black has fallen
for exactly the position White wanted. The pressure on the kingside is very
strong, Black's pieces are clumsy and it is not easy to make a move without
losing. This lets the White player easily predict what his opponent is going
to do, and as soon as he deviates, he knows that it probably was a mistake.18.Qf3?!f519.Rfe1Ne820.c5?Was Atalik-Jueguens in 2005. The GM won
after a long struggle.18...f619.h4fxg520.hxg5Bf8This move is finally
not amongst the top choices by a computer, and Ding finally took some time to
think. He has several good choices now.21.Nce3Nh5?!21...Nd422.Bb2c5Blocking that diagonal seemed of utmost importance.22.f5Bg7Discouraged
by the result of the opening and with a mere 10 minutes remaining, Black despairs.
There was no reason to give up the rook so easily, but his position was very
unpleasant.22...Qxg5+?23.Ng2+-22...Re823.Ng4Ne524.Ngf6+Nxf625.Nxf6+Kh826.fxg6+-22...Re5was the only move to hang around a while.
But it seems that after23.Ng4Bg724.Nxe5Nxe525.fxg6Bg426.gxh7+White
should be winning anyway, though there is work yet to be done. 23.fxe6Bxe624.Bf5!So precise!Bf725.Bg4And Black resigned in a hopeless situation.
Mamedyarov wiped Wang Yue off the board with a relatively obvious exchange sacrifice,
Guseinov drew Bu and Wang Hao held an impressive draw against Radjabov. This
tie only benefits one team: Russia! They seem to have gotten their stuff together
this year and, with a little bit of luck, edged out Ukraine. Russia is now a
full 2 points (or 1 match victory) ahead of their nearest rivals.1–0
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
There is live commentary of the most interesting games on Playchess.com,
beginning around half an hour after the games have started.
5 September 2012
15.00
8th Round
Daniel King
6 September 2012
15.00
9th Round
Valery Lilov
7 September 2012
15.00
10th Round
Daniel King
8 September 2012
Free Day
9 September 2011
11.00
11th Round, Closing
Daniel King
10 September 2011
Departure
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.
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
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