Australian Open Team Look To Finish Strongly; Women's Team Record Upset Over Israel;

It's been a few days since my last Olympiad blog and there are several for that, namely:

1. The rising flood levels in Budapest threaten to submerge the unfortunately situated island our hotel is on.

2. The infamous Bermuda party.

3. Poor health, courtesy of a hall full of 2,000 players from 190+ countries that all want to shake hands when meeting.

Excuses aside, both Australian teams, proudly sponsored by Integral Diagnostics (IDX) and DGT hope to finish the event strongly after recording a win and a loss each in rounds six and seven. The Open team looked to be in fine form in round six after dispatching a dangerous Kyrgyzstan with our first clean sweep of the event.

With his latest win, our board two GM Bobby Cheng sits on 4/5 with a 2662 rating performance and is close to becoming Australia's fourth-ever player to reach a 2600 FIDE rating. If not for a career-best effort from his first-round opponent, Saudi Arabia's FM Ahmed Abdullah S Alrehaili, Bobby would have already crossed this milestone. Bobby is ignoring ratings and milestones however and is just "trying to play one good move at a time." His professional attitude is inspiring.

For GM Temur Kuybokarov, IM Rishi Sardana, and GM David Smerdon, endgame grinds were on the cards and they all showed serious nerve in their respective conversions.

Then came the Bermuda party and what a party it was! The event, which traditionally precedes a rest day is the ultimate social event on the chess calendar, and mostly thanks to David's ridiculously expansive networks, we got to speak to many of chess' most influential and fun figures.

Conversations with GMs Anton Korobov and Levon Aronian were a few team highlights but on a personal note I also enjoyed speaking with my Chess.com colleague "Fun Master" Mike Klein and legendary ChessBase India journalist Sagar Shah.

When the clock ticked past midnight in Budapest we also had the pleasure of celebrating David's 40th birthday with him and this extended late into the evening as well as into the rest day. Hopefully, we helped make this special day a happy one for him.

We headed into our round seven match with Andorra with quiet confidence, hoping to book a round eight clash with a chess giant, but instead were humbled 2.5-1.5 by a nation with less than 80,000 people. As Australians, we know that quality is more important than quantity but I suppose this Andorran team knew even better on the day.

Draws on the bottom two boards and a tough loss for Temur on board one at the hands of GM Lance Henderson De La Fuente forced Rishi to press with Black to try and save the match. Sadly, after trying every subtle trick, our Olympiad debutant Rishi had to settle for a draw. I didn't say this to him after the match as he, like the others, was disappointed, however, his will to fight and press for Australia made me the proudest I've felt so far in this event. Rishi exuded Aussie spirit in this game.

For the first time in three Olympiads (two over the board and one online), I also learned how it feels as a team to be victims of an upset. Shock horror... it feels awful. Expect a resilient response though!

With eight match points secured Australia will face Ireland in round eight and we are the rating favorites but will not be taking this team lightly. In 2022, Ireland's board one IM Conor Murphy had a 2700+ rating performance at the Chennai Olympiad and while he hasn't reproduced this level in Budapest, we know what he and his teammates are capable of.

Meanwhile, in the women's section, Australia have been busy making history! A round-six victory over 25th seeds Israel came as quite a shock given that Flora Shen was down an exchange on the final board with the scores locked at 1.5-1.5, but somehow, Flora found a way to flip the script and secure a landmark victory for the Australian women's team. The whole game is worth reviewing as Flora managed to overcome a +5 deficit.

A round seven pairing with China didn't go the way of the women's team but the 4-0 didn't reflect the huge fight we put up. Walking into the tournament hall captain and IM Mihajlo Radovanovic said he truly believed his team could win and when I saw WFM Giang Nguyen's position after 10-15 moves I could see the team also believed they could. Canada, who are paired with the Australian women in round eight better watch out because I can feel the fire burning beneath our team.

*All images in this article may be repurposed with appropriate credit.