Tromso 08: It's all about China

Cheating in Tromso?!

Any person with a "captain" or "player" badge has been banned from the Press Center; regardless of whether they have finished their game or not. In the past days it was common for the press to invite guests up to the somewhat lacking press center for interviews or commentary. The official broadcast would take the chance to invite some of the players that were in the press center to the live show.

Starting today, that is not happening anymore as security is far stricter. The reason? "The Chief Arbiter has told us there has been cheating at the Olympiad" according to the people in charge of security in this area.

Players are supposed to be interviewed at the "Mixing area", basically a wind tunnel with three flimsy, small tables that barely hold a chessboard.

ADDENDUM:

The chief Arbiter has assured as that NO CHEATING has been found at the Olympiad, and that the games are being closely monitored. Look for the full letter in this report.

The press center isn't much to begin with

Flimsy chairs with flimsy tables, and now even players have no access to the area

Round Eight Report

The top matches saw some quick results in the top boards. Wang Yue and Ding Liren drew within the first two hours against Mamedyarov and Radjabov, leaving the result of the match up to the last two boards. Yu Yangyi played a very nice game against Safarli and won a technical marvel. Meanwhile on board four Guseinov was certainly pushing for a win... but he pushed too hard! He found himself on the wrong side of a knight being trapped and he had to concede a full point.

Wang Yue drew his game...

...as did Ding Liren

Cheparinov achieved a winning position very quickly against Ponomariov; something that certainly put pressure on the Ukrainian team. Eljanov steppted up to the game and defeated Iotov very cleanly, putting a dent in a fantastic tournament for the Bulgarian. With Ivanchuk drawing Topalov (from a very suspicious position) it all came down to the match Korobov-Rusev, which favored the Ukrainian. 2.5-1.5 Ukraine.

Korobov put the finishing touch in Ukraine's important win today

In the India-Armenia match Negi and Aronian drew in a solid game. The match came down to the wildly sharp endgame between Sasikirian and Movsesian, which ended in a perpetual check.

Sasikirian was the last to finish in India-Armenia

Parimarjan Negi has had a strong showing. Today he drew...

World number two Levon Aronian!

Rapport took advantage of a huge blunder by Onischuk, who simply fell for a two move tactic, losing a piece, but America struck back when their super-star reserve Sam Shankland beat Judit Polgar. Two draws at the top and the point was split.

Polgar fell victim to Shankland and the match finished 2-2

Kramnik lost to Vallejo in yet another dismal performance for the Russian player. With the miraculous hold of Anton Guijarro against Grischuk Spain managed to hold Russia to a 2-2 draw!

Poland against France saw Bacrot obtain a crushing position before time control. Gajewski had a great position around move 30 but he put way too much faith on his passed a-pawn. After sacrificing some material to see it through he realized that he had simply given up too much, and the rewards he reaped were simply not enough to compensate what was lost. This eventually was the decisive game as all the other boards drew.

Carlsen won his game against Predojevic and Norway beat Bosnia & Herzegovina

Romania continues surprising people and held the strong Czech Republic to a tie with four draws. Maybe this is a team that definitely deserves more attention!

Germany had four draws against Cuba and the two teams split the points.

Dominguez drew Naiditsch, as did the other three boards.

Strong players watching strong games

Women's Section

Russia had, as expected, no problems beating Hungary. China also beat Poland relatively comfortably, especially after Hou Yifan wiped out Socko relatively early.

Lagno drew Hoang Tranh Trang in the top board of Russia vs. Hungary

Hou Yifan posing with the members of Norway Three

Board two of France-America saw an interesting tactic:

Despite Abrahamyan's nice victory France struck back on boards three and four and took the match 2.5-1.5

Daulyte drew her game today in the match Lithuania-Croatia

Ukraine was convincing against Georgia. Even though Anna Muzychuk lost against Dzagnidze, the match has already been decided with a board two draw and wins by Ushenina and Zhukova.

Zhukova gave Ukraine the win in the Women's section today

Armenia put a stop to Colombia as they won handedly with victories by Kursova and Mrktchian. India did the same with Indonesia; the Indians wrecked their opponents on board three and four and neither of Indonesia's top boards had any realistic winning chances at any point, if anything they were fighting for survival.

The Spanish team beat the weaker Uzbekistani squad; Anna Matnadze drew her game

Tania Sachdev and Elizabeth Paehtz, India and Germany

The Polish team really had no chance against China

Photos by Alejandro Ramirez, Pascal Simon and André Schulz

Live commentary, interviews, analysis

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Three of our live game commentators: Yasser Seirawan, Simon Williams, Chris Ward

Interviewing Indian IM Tania Sachdev immediately after her game

Danny King's daily midnight wrapup on Youtube – recorded in the midnight dusk of Tromsø

Schedule of live commentary, TV shows, training and tournaments

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All you need to know about the Olympiad

• Full information on the games, the venue, the atmosphere and what's happening on and off the chessboard – 68 pages in PDF, 45 MB in size.
• All practical details you need to know before and after your arrival, including information about money, the climate, arriving at Oslo and Tromsø Airports, lost or delayed luggage, check-in at the hotels, the accreditation desk, information offices and the opening ceremony.

All ChessBase reports on the 2014 Olympiad in Tromsø