Russian women secure first gold in Khanty-Mansiysk

Winning their tenth match 4-0 against Bulgaria, the Russian women team have secured their first Olympic gold medal with a round to spare. In the open section Ukraine still leads by a point before the last round, which will be played on Sunday.

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 10 | Open section | top 20 boards

Olympiad 2010 | Open section | Round 10 Standings (top 20)

Results round 10 | Women section | top 10 boards

Olympiad 2010 | Women section | Round 10 Standings (top 20)

Complete results and standings can be found here

Round 10 report

For the first time in the post-Soviet era the Russian women team won the golden medal at an Olympiad, and they did so most convincingly. In Khanty-Mansiysk Russia 1 won ten matches in a row and with one round to spare there's a four-point gap with the rest of the field. In the 10th round Russia 1 crushed the Bulgarian team 4-0, leaving no doubt.



In the open section Ukraine is very close to winning gold. In the 10th round they inflicted the first loss upon France, and a big one: 3.5-0.5. Efimenko and Feller, who had both scored important points for their teams before, deserved a quick draw. At the other three boards the Ukrainians showed superb endgame technique.

His loss against Mamedyarov didn't affect Ivanchuk's top form. He beat Vachier-Lagrave in a long game.

Ivanchuk - Vachier-Lagrave Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 53. a5! Rxd4 54. Rxd4 cxd4 55. axb6 Rb7 56. Ne5 Rxb6 57. Ra2 Nc7 58. Ra7 and White kept a nagging plus that was converted on move 91.


Russia kept pace with Ukraine, this time thanks to Alexander Grischuk on board 2 who beat Wang Hao. It was another extremely difficult ending, with four knights and a symmetrical pawn structure.

Grischuk-Wang Hao Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010

Let's put it this way: if you manage to win this against a 2700 GM, you know how to play chess!



Israel climbed to sole third place by defeating the USA. Nakamura and Gelfand drew an Anti-Moscow on one, and on board two friends met: Gata Kamsky and Emil Sutovsky. Interestingly, it was the 'second' who crushed the 'boss'.

Sutovsky-Kamsky Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 10. Bxb5! Rb8 11. Bxc6 Nxc6 12. b3 Bb7 13. Nd5! and White won an entertaining game.


Spain beat Georgia 3-1 which included a brilliant win for Alexei Shirov.

Shirov-Jobava Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 29. Rxg6!! fxg6 30. Rxe6+ Kd8 31. Qxg6 Qf7 32. Bg5+! Bxg5 33. Qxg5+ Kc8 34. Qxd5 and White won.


The surprise of the day was Italy, who managed to hold Azerbaijan to a 2-2 tie. Fabiano Caruana drew with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Michele Godena (2551) split the point with Teimour Radjabov. On four IM Sabino Brunello suffered a calculated loss versus Eltaj Safarli but Italy's big talent Daniele Vocaturo mated his opponent Gadir Guseinov.

Vocaturo-Guseinov Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 From here White puts his three heavy pieces on the d-file, and Black completely misses why he's doing that. 28. Qd5+ Kh8 29. Rd1 Qxb4 30. Rcd3 Nxc5?? 31. Qd8+ 1-0


The Netherlands was under pressure against England but Smeets eventually drew a pawn ending 1 vs 2 against Short to score the fourth half point.



Magnus Carlsen suffered his third loss - in a way it was another small success for the FIDE President, as the Norwegian's opponent, Sanan Sjugirov, is the major product of the Kalmykia teach kids chess program, born the year Kirsan Ilyumzhinov took power.

Sjugirov-Carlsen Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010 White to play and win: 19. Rxf6! Bxh2+ 20. Kh1 Nxf6 21. Qxe6+ Kb8 22. gxf6 Bc7 23. Ne5 Qxc2 24. f7 Rhf8 25. Bb4 1-0


In the same round Veselin Topalov also lost, and so this Olympiad is shaking up the live top 10 ratings considerably, as can be seen in the far right column. Carlsen loses 15.3 points to get to 2810, still topping the list but the Kasparov record rating is further away. Topalov lost 17.5 points and dropped to 4th place, behind Anand and Aronian, who gained 6.7 points. Ivanchuk's +17,9 gets him the 6th spot.



A nice addition is that thanks to his excellent Olympiad, Sergey Karjakin has entered the top 10 for the first time.

The pairings for round 11 on Sunday in the open section include Israel-Ukraine, Russia 1-Spain, Poland-Hungary and France-Armenia. In the women section China, Georgia, and Ukraine will compete for the silver and bronze medals, while gold medal winners Russia 1 will have a most comfortable last round, playing against their compatriots, Russia 2.

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Photos courtesy of FIDE, more at the official site

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!