Chennai R3: Italy beats Norway, Austria beats Germany

India 2 still perfect

After three rounds, there are 20 teams that have won all their matches in the open section of the Chess Olympiad in Chennai. Topping the list, with a perfect 12 out of 12 score in board points, is the second team from India. The squad consists of four very young talents, joined by the ever-dangerous Adhiban. In round 4, they will face Italy, which will be in high spirits after having defeated the Magnus Carlsen-led team from Norway.

India 2 beat Switzerland 4-0 on Sunday, but only after Praggnanandhaa turned the tables in his board-1 game against Yannick Pelletier. The Swiss grandmaster got a big advantage early on, with his safer king and better structure. By move 40, it seemed only a matter of time before he would break through Pragg’s defences.

Pelletier here played 41.Bxd6, which is completely acceptable. However, 41.Bh5, harassing the rook was a better alternative, as Black will need to make major concessions in order to save both the exchange and the pawn on h7.

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Things began to go downhill for the Swiss from this point on. The fact that the 16-year-old Pragg managed to win the game eventually is a testament to his fighting spirit and incredible resilience — two youthful characteristics, indeed.

A colourful playing hall | Photo: Stev Bonhege

Among the teams sharing the lead on 6/6 match points is Poland, which has two strong 2700+ rated grandmasters on top boards: Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Radoslaw Wojtaszek. Duda made his debut in round 2, and he got to play a good-looking final move after Australia’s Anton Smirnov blundered on move 26.

By playing 26.Ne2, Smirnov showed he had overlooked the spectacular 26...Qxg2+, winning a piece — 27.Bxg2 Nxe2 28.Kh1 Nxc3. White resigned.

Poland, which arrived in Chennai as the fifth favourite team, will face Romania in Monday’s fourth round.

Jan-Krzysztof Duda | Photo: Lennart Ootes

India 2 vs Switzerland / Poland vs Australia

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

Big wins for Italy and Austria

After Magnus Carlsen helped the Norwegian team get a commanding 4-0 victory over Uruguay in round 2, the third seeds from the Scandinavian country were upset by a well-balanced Italian squad. 

It is true that Norway’s average rating is heavily boosted by Carlsen’s presence, but in this case, they also had a rating advantage on all the remaining boards. Draws on the two top boards and wins on boards 3 and 4 gave Italy the crucial victory. Moreover, as noted by Italy’s team captain Loek van Wely, Daniele Vocaturo ­— who held the world champion to a draw — could have even taken advantage of Carlsen’s over-pressing in the final stages of the game.

Lorenzo Lodici beat Jon Ludvig Hammer with white on board 3.

A wild tactical struggle led to this position, which engines evaluate as winning for White. Lodici’s natural-looking 39.hxg6, however, gave Hammer a chance to save the draw with the cold-blooded 39...hxg6 — now 40.Nd6, which was the winning manoeuvre on the previous move, can be responded by 40...Qd2 and Black survives.

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The contenders were in time trouble, though, and Hammer erred with 39...Qxf1+, which was followed by resignation after 40.Kxf1 Rxd1+ 41.Ke2.

Dutch GM Loek van Wely, Italy’s captain, following Daniele Vocaturo’s game against the world champion | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Meanwhile, Austria got the better of Germany by the smallest of margins. Much like Italy, the Austrians scored on boards 3 and 4, with Felix Blohberger beating Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu and Dominik Horvath taking down Dmitrij Kollars. In both cases, the Austrian representative had a 150+ rating deficit compared to his German opponent.

Blohberger outplayed the ever-creative Nisipeanu out of a double-edged Caro-Kann Defence.

Black cannot effectively defend his kingside pawns, which prompted Nisipeanu to go for counterplay in the centre via 25...Nc4, planning to capture on e3 and to infiltrate with his queen on f1.

However, as the game continuation shows, Black’s best alternative was to grab the queenside pawns starting with 25...Qxa2, keeping the knight and rook near the king and hoping to get enough counterplay with the passers on the a and b-files.

Nisipeanu’s plan quickly backfired, as he had to resign six moves later.

Azerbaijan is one of 20 countries with 6/6 match points — here facing the Argentine squad | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Other surprising result in the open section was Cuba’s draw with Ukraine. Yasser Quesada defeated Anton Korobov on the first board, while his brother Luis Ernesto Quesada lost against Kirill Shevchenko on board 3. Yasser and Luis Ernesto are both Yuniesky Quesada’s brothers — the latter now represents the United States, as he joined Webster University’s chess program, which also has Lazaro Bruzon in its lineup.

Find Monday’s top pairings and more technical information at the end of this article.

All games from the three matches mentioned in this section

Women’s: Upsets by Mongolia and Estonia

Continuing the trend seen in the open section, Mongolia upset a higher-rated opponent by scoring wins on boards 3 and 4. The East-Asians defeated the United States, with wins by Turmunkh Munkhzul over Carissa Yip and Bat-Erdene Mungunzul over Tatev Abrahamyan.

As shown by Karsten Müller’s analysis, Abrahamyan could have held a draw in the tricky knight endgame with five pawns per side.

 

Abrahamyan, Tatev2291

0–1

Mungunzul, Bat-Erdene2163

44th Chess Olympiad Women 2022 Chennai31.07.2022[Mueller,Karsten]

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nf3 Bc5 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d3 h6 6.c3 d6 7.Nbd2 0-0 8.h3 a6 9.Bb3 Re8 10.Re1 Be6 11.Bc2 d5 12.exd5 Bxd5 13.Ne4 Nxe4 14.dxe4 Be6 15.Qe2 Qf6 16.b4 Ba7 17.Be3 Ne7 18.Nh2 Bxe3 19.Qxe3 Ng6 20.Ng4 Qh4 21.Qf3 Rad8 22.Ne3 Rd2 23.Rad1 Red8 24.Bb3 Bxb3 25.axb3 R2d3 26.Qg4 Qxg4 27.hxg4 Nf4 28.Kf1 c6 29.g3 Ne6 30.Rxd3 Rxd3 31.Rc1 Rd2 32.Nc4 Ra2 33.Nxe5 Ng5 34.Re1 f6 35.Nc4 Nf3 36.Rd1 Nh2+ 37.Kg2 Nxg4 38.Rd2 Rxd2 39.Nxd2 Kf8 40.f4 Ke7 41.Kf3 h5 42.Ke2 Ke6 43.Nf3 g6 44.Nd4+ Kd6 45.Nf3 Ke6 46.Ne1 Kd6 47.Nd3 b6 48.Nb2 c5 49.Nd3 cxb4 50.Nxb4 a5

Botvinnik's law. Knight endings are like pawn endings. Zugzwang, king actvity and outside passed pawns are very valuable. But there are differences - like knight forks of course: 51.Nd5? This misplaces the knight. Now Black's outside pawns on both wings will decide. 51.Nd3 defends, e.g. b5 52.Nb2 Kc5 53.Kf3 g5 54.Nd3+ Kc6 55.Nb2= 51...b5 52.Kd3 In the pawn ending 52.Nxf6?! Nxf6 53.e5+ Ke6 54.exf6 Kxf6 Black's outside pawns are also winning trumps, e.g. 55.Kd3 Kf5 56.c4 bxc4+ 57.Kxc4 Kg4 58.Kb5 Kxg3 59.Kxa5 h4-+ 52...g5 53.Ke2 h4 54.gxh4 gxh4 55.Kf3 h3! 56.Nb6 56.Kxg4 h2-+ 56...h2 57.Kg2 Ne3+ 58.Kxh2 Kc7!

Black's beautiful point. White cannot avoid entering a lost pawn endgame now. 58...Kc7 59.Nd5+ Nxd5 60.exd5 a4-+ 0–1

The Armenian women’s squad was also upset in round 3, as Estonia’s Mai Narva beat Elina Danielian on board 1, and three draws were signed in the remaining encounters of the match. In Monday’s fourth round, Estonia and Mongolia will have tough tasks, as they are set to face India 2 and Kazakhstan respectively.

It should be noted that, much like in the open section, all three Indian women’s teams have 6/6 match points after three days of action.

Commentators extraordinaire — Tania Sachdev and Jovanka Houska both drew their games as Indian beat England 3-1 in round 3 | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Mongolia vs United States / Estonia vs Armenia

Round 4 pairings - Open

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...96 boards

Round 4 pairings - Women

...78 boards

*) This team is assigned to a fixed board.

• Full pairings and standings at Chess-Results: Open | Women’s
• All games on Live.ChessBase.com: Open | Women’s

Links

• Official website
• Chess fever in India
• Chennai Olympiad: US big favourite, India looking to leave a mark
• India presents four strong teams for the Olympiad in Chennai
• Olympiad stories with Saravanan: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3