2012 Chess Olympiad Istanbul: Round nine

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 nine

Russia's big advantage in the Open section melted in one day as they went down against USA, allowing three other teams to catch up on the shared first place. Alex Onischuk and Sergey Karjakin made a relatively quick draw, and then Dmitry Jakovenko outplayed the young Ray Robson.

But USA prevailed on the top two boards as Hikaru Nakamura (right) defeated Vladimir Kramnik...

... and Gata Kamsky (left) defeated Alexander Grischuk.

Philippines' tremendous run was put to a stop by the powerful Chinese team. Ding Liren achieved another quick victory, and his team-mates followed the suit to gain a huge 3-0 advantage. Wesley So was the only to take a draw for Philippines, in the game against Wang Hao (picture below).

Armenia remained in the contention for the gold medal after defeating the European champion Germany with 2.5-1.5 points. The decisive moment was when Georg Meier blundered a queen in an approximately equal ending.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov played another excellent game to gain the lead for Azerbaijan in the match against Poland. However, the well-prepared Radoslaw Wojtaszek, who had been Vishy Anand's second for several years, defeated Teimour Radjabov in his favourite King's Indian Defence. The other two games were drawn and the match ended in a 2-2 tie.

Early stages of the match France vs Ukraine

The game Vassily Ivanchuk-Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was very interesting (see video lecture by GM Daniel King below). The French player practically "forced" Ivanchuk to execute the typical Sicilian sacrifice on d5. Black defended well for awhile, but apparently he forgot about the danger hiding behind the opening of the g-file. Ivanchuk efficiently concluded the game. Another Ukrainian victory by Aleksandr Moiseenko sealed the fate of the French team.

Netherlands are making their way to the top as they defeated Israel thanks to Loek Van Wely's swift victory against Emil Sutovsky and Jan Smeets' effort on the 4th board.

Round nine: Top twenty team pairings – Open

Women Section

China (above right) continued their winning streak by defeating France. Again the top two boards were at work, securing the final score of 3-1 in the favour of China.

India's top board: GM Harika Dronavalli

Russia drew with black, won with white, for the overall score of 3-1 in the match with India. Poland recovered from the drama in the previous two rounds and scored a minimal win of 2.5-1.5 against Bulgaria. Jolanta Zawadzka delivered the decisive punch.

Ukraine vs USA in the ninth round

Kazakhstan edged the equally talented team of Uzbekistan by a narrow margin 2.5-1.5. Ukraine and Armenia beat USA and Iran respectively by 3-1, while Azerbaijan stunned the third seeded Georgia. Israel shocked the higher-rated Serbia by imposing them a 3-1 defeat.

Armenia vs Iran, with GM Elina Danielian vs WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan on board one

Round nine: Top twenty team pairings – Women

Top rankings after nine 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

The Olympiad is full of good teams. But there are different types of 'good teams'. For example, China is a very solid team with not a huge level difference between boards 1 and 5. Armenia has a spectacular first board but none of the others cross 2700. Ukraine and Russia are just beastly teams, fielding 2700s on their last board. The US is an interesting team. Being the country that I represent now, I know their ins and outs. Essentially, there is a large contingency of players trying to get into board 4 and 5. Akobian, Shankland, Robson, Hess, Seirawan, and now Gareev will all be rather close in that race. However, as strong as these GMs are, they are unfortunately not quite the level of Jakovenko, Russia's top level 4th board. In these cases, it is up to the team 'super-stars', Kamsky and Nakamura, to pull through and take the match. In essence, this is exactly what happened today. The USA upsets Russia to catch up with then and make this an unpredictable Olympiad.

Daniel King: Round 9 Play of the Day Vassily Ivanchuk-Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Andrew Martin: Game of the Day Rd 9: Lenier Dominguez vs Alexei Shirov

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.