Olympiad R4: the King's Indian is still alive

The world's best female player has been playing an important role thus far for her team in the Open section of the Olympiad. Today Judit Polgar's win against Bu Xiangzhi was decisive in the Hungary-China match. The Netherlands beat Spain with a win for Van Wely against Shirov and Carlsen lost to Jobava on board one of Norway-Georgia. The game of the day was Kramnik-Nakamura, a sharp King's Indian that ended in a draw.

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 4 | Open section | top 20 boards

Results round 4 | Women section | top 10 boards

Complete results and standings can be found here

Round 4 report

This fourth round was especially nice for a number of very interesting encounters on the individual boards. But before we have a look, we'll note that in the men's section the following teams won all their matches so far: (in order of standings): Russia 2, Georgia, Vietnam, Russia 1, Hungary, Netherlands and Armenia. In the women section this can only be said of Ukraine, China, Bulgaria and Russia 1.

Today the Indian team, playing without Vishy Anand in Khanty, was not strong enough for the second team of Russia. Ian Neponmiachtchi got an overwhelming position against Krishnan Sasikiran's Caro-Kann on board one. The Indian sacrificed an exchange, but had to resign at move 54. In a King's Indian, it was White (Vitiugov) who got a winning kingside attack against Ganguly.



In the only decisive game of the match, Judit Polgar defeated China's Bu Xiangzhi. The world's number one female player so far scored 3.5/4 for the Hungarian team.

Polgar-Bu Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 Bu is about to win back a sacrificed pawn, but Polgar doesn't alllow him to equalize: 33. e6! fxe6 (33... Rxe6 34. Rxe6 fxe6 35. Rb5) 34. Rd7 Nf8 35. Rxe7 Rxe7 36. Rf2 Qa5 37. Qd2! and White was technically winning.


Levon Aronian played a similar role for Armenia and scored the only victory, against Jakovenko, who plays top board for Russia 3.

Aronian-Jakovenko Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 Black's pieces lack coordination and Aronian finds the Achilles' heel, normally a weakness only in the opening: f7! 38. Be8! Na6 39. Ne5 cxd4 40. exd4 g5 41. Bxf7! The rook will be stronger than the two minor pieces. 41... Rxe5+ 42. fxe5 Kxf7 43. Rc6 Nb8 44. Rc7+ Be7 45. b3 Na6 46. Rb7 1-0


The Netherlands beat Spain convincingly: 3-1. It's no surprise that Stellwagen beat Magem Badals, but on board one Van Wely was too strong for Shirov as well. The Dutchman used an opening played by his former boss Kramnik two weeks ago in Shanghai against the same opponent, and like in that game White's bishop pair was a strong asset.

Van Wely-Shirov Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 45...a5? Black had to sacrifice the a-pawn with 45... Ne7 46. Rxg8 Kxg8 47. Nxa6 Nc6 48. Bb6 Rb2 which keeps drawing chanches. 46.Bg4! Nxf4 47. Rf5+ 1-0




Russia 1 set aside their first serious opponent: the USA. Grischuk and Karjakin won their games against Kamsky and Onischuk respectively, but the game of the match - of the day, we should say - was Kramnik-Nakamura. While Kasparov once said goodbye to the King's Indian because of bad results against especially this opponent, the American went for the opening anyway.

Kramnik chose the 9.Nd2 line, as did Beliavsky in Amsterdam last year, but the Russian avoided the complications from this game.

Kramnik-Nakamura Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 Nakamura is a great fighter and simply plays for a win in this game. 4. e4 d6 5. d4 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Nd2 Ne8 10. b4 f5 11. c5 Nf6 12. a4!? (12. f3 f4 13. Nc4 g5 14. a4 Ng6 15. Ba3 Rf7 16. a5 h5 17. b5 dxc5 18. b6 was the game game Beliavsky,A-Nakamura,H/Amsterdam 2009. Kramnik avoids these complications with a different set-up.) 12... f4 13. Nc4 g5 14. Ba3 g4 15. cxd6 cxd6 16. b5 Ne8 17. Bxg4 Kramnik goes for concrete lines. After e.g. 17. Bd3 Black has different ways to continue the attack: 17... Ng6/17... Rf6. 17... Qc7 18. Be2 f3! Of course. 19. b6!? A piece sac for two pawns, to take over the initiative. 19. gxf3 Bh3 20. Re1 Ng6 21. b6 axb6 22. Nb5 Qd8 23. Kh1 Nf4 24. Bf1 Rf6 was not to Kramnik's taste apparently. 19... axb6 20. Nb5!? (20. gxf3) 20... fxe2 21. Qxe2 Qd8 22. Nbxd6 Nxd6 23. Bxd6 Rf7 24. Bxe5 Ng6 25. Bxg7 Nf4 26. Qe3 Qg5 27. g3 Qxg7 28. Nxb6 28... Bg4!? Nakamura sacrifices more material, and now had just two minutes left to reach move 40... 29. Nxa8 Ne2+ 30. Kg2 Bf3+ 31. Qxf3 Rxf3 32. Kxf3 Nd4+ 33. Kg2 Qf8 Black wins the knight and so it will be two Rooks and six pawns against Queen, knight and two pawns. 34. Rfe1 Qxa8 35. Red1 Nc2! With little time on the clock Nakamura finds a way to reach the utmost activity. 36. Rac1 Qxa4 37. d6 Qxe4+ 38. Kg1 Nd4 39. d7 Nf3+ 40. Kf1 Nxh2+ 41. Kg1 Nf3+ and draw agreed. What a great game, what a great opening, and what great players!




World's number one Magnus Carlsen suffered his first loss with Black in a classical game since, if we calculated correctly, his game against Kramnik in Dortmund last year. (His last loss with White was against the same opponent at Corus this year.) The one who did it was Georgia's number one Baadur Jobava, who came up with an interesting novelty as early as move six in a Sämisch (4.a3) Nimzo and played very energetically the whole game.

Jobava-Carlsen Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 29. Rxh7+! Rxh7 30. Rxe8 Kf7 31. Ra8 and Carlsen kept on fighting, but had to throw in the towel at move 64.




These and other games can be found, as always, in the viewer below. There you'll also find a nice attacking game by Topalov and Ivan Sokolov's fourth win in four games, this time from a drawn rook ending, against Banikas.



The rating favorites of the women event Russia 1 defeated the winners of the Dresden Olympiad, Georgia. The key to success was Alisa Galliamova’s victory over Bela Khotenashvili; the other three games were drawn.

Photos courtesy of FIDE, more at the official site

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 (Mark Crowther put a huge amount of work into generating a programme for processing the games and he now seems to have more games and in better shape than the official site.)
• 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

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