2012 Chess Olympiad Istanbul: Round four

The 40th Chess Olympiad is scheduled to take 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 four

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 second 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 round four of the Olympiad Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna, above, beat...

In one of the derby matches of the Olympiad Russia and China played on the second table. Bu Xiangzhi comfortably held Sergey Karjakin with the Petroff defence, but Wang Yue erred terribly against Alexander Grischuk 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 an inferior position against Kramnik. Final score 3-1 in favour of Russia.

Top Russian boards: Vladimir Kramnik, right, and Alexander Gischuk

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 against Igor Khenkin, but Gadir Guseinov went down in an opposite-coloured bishops endgame against Daniel Fridman. The official commentator Evgeniy Miroshnichenko believes that Guseinov could have held the draw with precise play.

France and England split the points, while Armenia achieved a narrow victory against the Philippines.

Levon Aronian (left) 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 (above) won his first game in the Olympiad, while Ruslan Ponomariov beat Mateusz Bartel to avenge the loss from the recent Dortmund super-tournament.

Ukrainian former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov

Round four: Top twenty team pairings – Open

In the Women's section Georgia 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 (Hou Yifan drew against Elisabeth Pähtz),

Held the Women's World Champion to a draw: German IM Elisabeth Pähtz

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. The Russians 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 in the middle. Much the same with the US and Slovenia, except the top and bottom boards exchanged draws while the middle boards exchanging wins.

Indian IM Tania Sachdev defeated WIM Marija of Serbia in round four

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

Round four: Top twenty team pairings – Women

Top rankings after four 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

Even though Russia has been the top seeded team in pretty much every event they play, they haven't been able to win maybe as much as you would think. Ukraine and Armenia have taken the past four Olympiads, and in two of them Russia didn't even medal. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why this is – many could attribute it to the simple fact that competition at the top is extremely fierece; especially since many strong teams were spawned from the breakup of the Soviet Union. However, this hasn't changed one fact. Russia is still #1 by rating, with the most solid lineup you can possibly imagine, and every team in this tournament would be happy to draw them. China has had many players rise to the top levels in recent years, and although they are very strong and very highly ranked, Russia shows them in this match who is boss.

GM Daniel King: Istanbul Olympiad 2012 Round 4 play of the day

Andrew Martin: Game of the Day Rd 4 – Grischuk vs Wang Yue

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.