Bobby Cheng Topples Vasyl Ivanchuk; Women's Team Clean Sweep Nicaragua
Two years on from our tight match against Ukraine at the 2022 Olympiad in Chennai, Team Australia, who are proudly sponsored by Integral Diagnostics (IDX) and DGT, once again paired with the chess powerhouses. This time, Team Ukraine featured four former 2700s, three of whom were part of the gold-winning team in the 2004 edition.
GM Temur Kuybokarov was the first to secure a result against Ukraine, a half-point against GM Andrei Volokitin following a theoretical masterclass that teammate Bobby would later dub a "GM draw."
What many won't know back in Australia is that an accreditation mishap saw Temur refused entry at the security gates and the chief arbiter's help was required to get him into the playing hall. After encountering a similar problem, GM Magnus Carlsen, who arrived on a bike more than 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, was allowed entry without the same fiasco.
GM Bobby Cheng's game was the next to finish and the last five minutes of this game were some of the most exhilarating I have ever witnessed in chess. Defending against Ivanchuk with mere seconds on the clock before reaching the time control, Bobby held his nerve, although I could feel the energy radiating from him as the seconds ticked by. Two moves from the time control Bobby seemed to have stabilized with the ingenious 38...Nb5. Unbeknownst to Ivanchuk, Bobby had also laid a trap as a crowd formed around the table.
Then, an inexplicable blunder by Ivanchuk resulted in one of the greatest boilovers of the round, Ivanchuk took Bobby's c6-pawn and lost a piece on the spot. A subdued celebration from Bobby out of respect for his opponent transpired and the scoreboard ticked over to 1.5-0.5, Australia's way.
Meanwhile, our veterans GMs Zong-Yuan Zhao and David Smerdon fought for half points against GMs Ruslan Ponomariov and Anton Korobov but sadly, securing the points required a robotic level of finesse. David's chance at a fortress was particularly mindboggling and we feel that finding the drawn line here would have made this one of the games of the tournament.
A 2.5-1.5 score is one that we're happy with as a team however it hurts to know what could've been had we capitalized on good fortune. The upside to this result is that we've been paired with our neighbors across the ditch in round four and they have already started taunting us, clearly trying to find a way to unravel the 200-point average rating gap.
Our women's team put in a professional performance in round three and swept Nicaragua 4-0. Preparation with captain and IM Mihaljo Radovanovic seems to be paying off and our team's debutants Flora Shen and WFM Alaina Vincent are still undefeated. The women will play Singapore in round four and are the rating favorites in this encounter.
The Australian women's team has dominated in matches against lower seeds. Photo: Mark Livshitz/FIDE.
