Chess Olympiad: China Ends Polish Run, Plays U.S. For Gold

Poland's amazing run at the 43rd Olympiad was ended today by China, the opponent of the U.S. in a clash for gold in tomorrow's final round. In the women's section, China will defend its sole lead vs Russia.

The world of chess politics changed significantly yesterday, and continued to do so a bit more on the second day of the general assembly. Among the FIDE vice presidents that were appointed was none other than Nigel Short.

Short jokingly sat down at England's third board for a moment.

Lukasz Turlej, who was on Short's ticket as the intended deputy president, is a vice president now as well. That was a small Polish victory on a day when the Polish team suffered its first loss of the tournament.

Whereas so many other top teams had failed to do so, China won—and quite convincingly. Its board one Ding Liren was Jan-Krzysztof Duda's third 2800 opponent in the tournament, but the first he failed to hold the draw against.

Duda facing his third 2800 opponent. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Early in the game there was a move repetition, but Ding decided to continue. Soon after, he found an amazing piece sacrifice and ended up winning a dazzling game.

Keep in mind that he needs to sit on a special, softer chair, and still walks on crutches. Although he is used to them by now (he needs them for another two months or so), Ding told Chess.com that he drinks less water to avoid having to go to the toilet! Below is his great game, and an interview.

Chess.com's interview with Ding Liren.

Kamil Dragun hadn't lost a game yet, but for him it also went wrong, against Li Chao. It wasn't easy to point out exactly where White went from equal to worse, but it's clear that the attack didn't get off the ground, and White's king's rook got terribly misplaced.

Like his team, Dragun (here checking out the games of his female compatriots) suffered his first loss today. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

That was a blow for Poland obviously, but the team will still be playing for medals tomorrow with a chance to make its Olympiad highly successful.

We're seeing very close battles in this final phase of the Olympiad. In the five matches below the top boards, there were 16 draws out of 20 games, with Vietnam-Germany seeing only draws.

Team USA, playing without Hikaru Nakamura for the first time, recovered from yesterday's loss with a narrow win vs Armenia. Sam Shankland did it for the Americans, with what was in fact a relatively easy win for him.

It looks like he out-prepared Hrant Melkumyan in a sharp and highly theoretical Botvinnik Semi-Slav, and bad judgment on move 26 by the Armenian player gave Shankland all the chances. Similar to his game with Sethuraman in the 2016 Olympiad, he walked up his king without fear.

Shankland's game didn't last very long, but still ended after a quick draw between Levon Aronian and Fabiano Caruana on board one. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com. 

Russia once again didn't have a very successful Olympiad, but it actually fought back, and can still finish in a tie for first place. Whereas he was responsible for a key loss earlier in the tournament, this time Vladimir Kramnik helped his team to gain two match points.

England's David Howell probably had something brilliant in mind when he sacked a piece, but there was a flaw in his reasoning, as Kramnik demonstrated.

Vladimir Kramnik was today's match winner for Russia. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Besides Poland and Russia there is one more team tied for third place. Just like in the FIFA World Cup final, France won against Croatia. Laurent Fressinet was the only winner here, and had an easy day:

Laurent Fressinet. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

For Azerbaijan the last few days have been pretty cruel. It started the Olympiad so strongly, but then lost 1.5-2.5 three times in a row—today vs Ukraine.

Norway, on the other hand, is still doing well. Today the young team beat Serbia 2.5-1.5. All five Norwegians are gaining Elo for a total of 46.6 points.

Benjamin Norkevich won an absolutely wild game today. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

And so we'll see the U.S. and China play on top boards tomorrow, with the easy conclusion that the winner will take the gold medal. More scenarios are given below.

The two countries have faced each other seven times before at Olympiads, and scored one victory each with five ties.

Tomorrow's line-ups have been published already. It's going to be Caruana-Ding, Yu-So, Nakamura-Bu and Li-Shankland on top boards.

Top pairings: U.S.-China, France-Russia, India-Poland, Germany-Armenia, Ukraine-Czech Republic, England-Kazakhstan.

Whereas the Chinese open team was attempting to take over the lead today, the Chinese women's team was simply trying to protect it.

Beginning with 16 points, one ahead of three other teams, it would face one of those teams in round 10. China was favored against the U.S. on all four boards, yet four draws ensued.

Chess.com's interview with China's board one, World Champion Ju Wenjun.

The other two most meaningful matches were also grudge matches: Ukraine-Russia and Azerbaijan-Armenia. Ukraine and Armenia both began the round with 15 points while their opponents were on 14.

Ukraine-Russia had all of the usual importance but not much of the usual action. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com

But it was all draws here too!  Collectively there was no movement at the top, but there was still some action along the way, including another example of why you should never resign.

Let's take a look at a few interesting moments in the drawfest. After split points on the top and bottom boards in China-U.S., the two middle boards would decide things. GM Irina Krush had a hint of an advantage in her middlegame, but that disappeared, leaving everything up to the most imbalanced position anywhere at the women's top tables: GM Lei Tingjie against WGM Tatev Abrahamyan.

WGM Tatev Abrahamyan has recently been steadying the U.S. ship on board three. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com

Much had been made of team USA's pitiful 1.5/7 start on its third board, but Abrahamyan has since tried to personally erase those memories with two straight wins there. But could she make it three? Also, with the entire match and first place in the balance, how much would she "push" in an effort to win? With a well-timed pawn sac, it turns out she was indeed going for glory.

In the end, it wasn't even clear who was pushing for the win, but it seems it was that kind of day. No matter what was tried, draws seemed destined to find the players. That was never more evident than in board three of the Azerbaijan-Armenia match. 

WFM Anna Sargsyan was simply up a knight, seemingly without a complicated conversion. But if Armenia fails to win its first-ever team medal in the women's section, it may have to look back on this moment:

Deep focus didn't prevent Sargsyan from overlooking a stalemate, twice. | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com

With the other three games in the match also drawn, Armenia settled for one match point. The vital match point lost costs the team a share of first place going into the last round.

Ukraine-Russia was a star-studded matchup on paper (seven GMs out of eight players, or about 20 percent of the female grandmasters in the entire world). But the actual games didn't live up to the hype. Or, maybe both teams were just given instructions to play it carefully.

Symmetry permeated the top two boards, and if you had to look for one game where a player enjoyed a modicum of winning chances, that would be board four. Curiously, it came from the one non-GM of the lot. WGM Olga Girya's space advantage and powerful bishop looked like they might amount to something against GM Natalia Zhukova. 

WGM Olga Girya. Was she thinking about what might have been? | Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com

An incredibly subtle bishop redirection would likely have tilted the balance of power.

Batumi Olympiad (Women) | Round 10 Standings (Top 20)

(Full standings here.)

Top pairings: Russia-China, U.S.-Ukraine, Armenia-Georgia, Vietnam-Azerbaijan, Hungary-Slovenia, Poland-Spain. 

Games via TWIC.

Mike Klein contributed to this report.

NOTE THAT THE LAST ROUND STARTS FOUR HOURS EARLIER. You can watch live coverage with GMs Robin van Kampen and Yasser Seirawan at Chess.com/TV and Twitch.tv/Chessbrah starting from midnight Pacific, 3 a.m. New York, 9 a.m. Central Europe.

Earlier reports:

• Chess Olympiad Lineups Announced; Russian Streak Ends
• Chess Olympiad Starts With Spectacular Ceremony
• Chess Olympiad: 7 Minutes Of Tension In 1st Round
• Chess Olympiad Sparked By Marriage Proposal On Day 2
• Chess Olympiad: Wesley So Paces Team USA
• Chess Olympiad: Poland Beats Russia, Kramnik Gets Checkmated
• Chess Olympiad: Czechia Beats China, Poland Rolls On In Round 5
• Chess Olympiad: Azerbaijan, Poland Still Perfect
• Chess Olympiad: U.S. Joins Poland, Azerbaijan In Lead
• Chess Olympiad: U.S. Grabs Sole Lead In Round 8
• Chess Olympiad: Poland Continues Remarkable Run, Beats USA