Ivanchuk on 6/6 in Khanty-Mansiysk

Ukraine is the sole leader at the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk after seven rounds. The team is on 13 match points, followed by Azerbaijan, Hungary and Russia with one point less. Ukraine's top board Vassily Ivanchuk won all his games so far.

General info

The 39th Chess Olympiad takes place September 20th – October 3rd at the Tennis Sport Development Center in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. 148 teams (735 players) in the Open section and 114 teams (559 players) in the Women section participate in the biannual event.

Each team consists four players and one reserve. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves and then 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from move one.

Results round 7 | Open section | top 20 boards

Results round 7 | Women section | top 10 boards

Complete results and standings can be found here

Round 7 report

With the voting for the FIDE Presidential elections going on as we speak, the chess talk of the day is all about Vassily Ivanchuk. The unpredictable Ukrainian is in top shape, and won his sixth game yesterday - another wild one - against Georgia's Baadur Jobava. With three quick draws on the other boards, everything depended on, and everyone was watching, the top board.

Ivanchuk-Jobava Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. f3 Qb6 4. a3!? This might already be a novelty. 4... e5!? 5. exd5 Nf6 6. dxe5 6... Bc5?! It seems that Ivanchuk proves the incorrectness of this creative idea. 7. exf6 Bf2+ 8. Ke2 O-O 9. Qd2 $1 Re8+ 10. Kd1 Re1+ 10... Bxg1 11. Bd3 (11. Qg5?! g6 12. Qh6 Re1+! 13. Kxe1 Qf2+ 14. Kd1 Qxf1+ 15. Kd2 Qxg2+ 16. Kc3 Qxf3+ 17. Be3 Qxf6+ 18. Kb3 Bxe3 19. Qxe3 Bf5) 11... Bd4 12. fxg7 Bxg7 13. Re1. 11. Qxe1 Bxe1 12. Kxe1 This position could function as a retrogade problem perhaps: how did the players reach it from move 1? :-) In any case, Ivanchuk managed to develop his pieces slowly but surely, and then caught the queen after she had entered his queenside.


In the encounter between Azerbaijan and Armenia it was Gadir Guseinov who decided matters.

Guseinov-Pashikian Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 26... Ba6? Black had to play 26... Kg4 27. Rxc5 Re8 but that's not much fun either. 27. Rde1! Rhf8 28. R5e4 and the mating net closed.


Former Ukrainian Sergey Karjakin plays his first Olympiad for Russia, and thus far he's been quite important for his team. He's on 5.5/6 and a 2995 performance and yesterday he scored the winning point against Russia 2.

Karjakin-Tomashevsky Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 27. Qg4! Even at this level it's easy to miss (or underestimate) a double attack. 27... Qb7 (27... Qg6 28. Qxg6 hxg6 29. Ne2) 28. Nf5 Also strong was} 28. Ne6! Qxb5 29. Bxg7) 28... Bxf5 29. Qxf5 Qxb5 30. Bxg7! Rb8 31. Bc3 Qb6 32. Qg5+ Qg6 33. Qe5 1-0


Hikaru Nakamura 'overpressed and blew a completely winning position', to use his own words.

Nakamura-Wojtaszek Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 22. Qe4?! Crusing was 22. Nxe6! fxe6 23. Qxe6+ Kh8 (23... Rf7 24. Bxh7+ Kxh7 25. Bxe7 Rxe7 26. Ng5+ Kh8 27. Qh3+) 24. Qh3 h6 (24... g6 25. Bxg6) 25. Bxh6+-. In the game the American sacrificed a few pawns to keep activity, but his opponent defended well and won in the end.


Topalov suffered a loss against Canada's board one Mark Bluvshtein, who once expained to us his victory against Alexei Shirov, if you remember.

Bluvshtein-Topalov Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 Black's last move 23... Bf5 was a mistake. 24. Nxd6! Bxd6 25. Rxd6 Rxe2 26. Rxd8+ Kf7 27. Bxe2 Ke7 27... h5 (to prevent the exchange of bishops) fails to 28. R8d6 Qb7 29. Bf3 Qc8 30. Rc6+-. 28. Bg4! Bxg4 29. hxg4 Qxd8 30. Rxd8 Kxd8 31. Kf1 and White won the knight ending.


Today, besides Ilyumzhinov-Karpov, the big clash is Ukraine vs Russia in the men section, and also Hungary-Azerbaijan and Poland-Armenia.

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo


Chess Olympiad & FIDE Congress 2010 | Schedule

Links

• Official website
• All details at Chess-Results
• Games in PGN: Open | Women via TWIC
• Chessbase, the biggest portal for chess news
• TWIC, more news and by far the best source for games
• Chessdom, with news & live games
• Europe-Eches with news in French and videos in English & French
• Susan Polgar blogging
• Shaun Press blogging
• GM David Smerdon blogging
• GM Jon Ludvig Hammer blogging
• The Chess Drum
• Alexandra Kosteniuk blogging
• Jan Gustafsson blogging
• Chess in Translation with OIympiad articles
• Simon Williams' blog
• Kevin Spraggett's blog
• Magnus Carlsen blogging
• Ard van Beek on the Dutch team

We'll continue adding links during the Olympiad. If you're missing one, don't hesitate to mention it in the comments!