Olympiad: the games have started

After last night's opening ceremony, the 38th Chess Olympiad has now really started. Russia plays Switzerland on the "top board" and quite suprisingly, Morozevich is placed on board three. At their first board, Svidler meets Korchnoi. Aronian is leading the Armenian team that won in 2006 and faces Caruana of Italy.

Did everybody arrive in time? The official site states 1. Runde Open am 13.11.2008 um 15.03 - apparently it all started three minutes late. Not bad for such a huge event, and thus far there's no news about a player falling victim to the new rule that arriving late leads to an immediate loss.

Below you'll find the full pairings of the first round, and so we finally know what the teams look like. (Well, every team has also one more subsitute player, of course.) Live games here.

[TABLE=453] [TABLE=454]