Chess Olympiad 2016: USA Wins 1st Olympic Gold In 40 Years; China Takes Women's Section

The United States won the Baku Olympiad after edging out Ukraine on tiebreak. China also beat Russia and so won the women's section convincingly.

Rating-wise Russia was the top seed, but with three top-10 players on the team, the U.S. team was expected by many experts and fans to win this Olympiad. It did so scoring 20 match points out of 11 rounds, and without losing a single match.

Those two records weren't unique though: Greece remained unbeaten as well (four wins and seven times 2-2) and Ukraine scored 20 match points too. In the end, USA won with nine more "Olympic S.B. points," as explained in the (rather complicated) regulations: "the sum match points of each opponent, excluding the opponent who scored the lowest number of match points, multiplied by the number of game points achieved against this opponent."

The winning team (add Ray Robson, who didn't play today).

Math was also needed for the women's section, but not for determining gold. China was the only team to reach 20 match points there. Russia, who had won the last three Olympiads, missed out on the medals. Poland took silver and Ukraine bronze after both teams finished on 17 match points. More on the women below.

Open section:

Ukraine and the USA went into the final round with 18 match points, and behind them was Russia as the only team on 16. All three teams were expected to win, and all three delivered.

Looking back at those three matches, only USA-Canada had a potentially different result. OK, about GM Fabiano Caruana's game there was not any doubt; he completely outplayed GM Evgeny Bareev. The former world number-four really didn't stand a chance.

Bareev resigns his game vs Caruana...

...who had picked a special t-shirt for the occasion.

However, GM Hikaru Nakamura was defending a slightly worse endgame vs GM Anton Kovalyov, and GM Sam Shankland's theoretical pawn sacrifice against GM Eric Hansen wasn't working out as in Karjakin-So, Bilbao 2016, where Black quickly got it back. But at least one of those games should end in a draw, right? And GM Wesley So ought to win against GM Alexandre Lesiege, right?

Well, So did win, but don't ask how. He was still sniffling at the board and using a lot of tissues, also for inhaling his Olbas oil containing e.g. peppermint and eucalyptus for improving respiration. He had to do that away from the board. "I didn't want my opponent to smell it," So told Chess.com.

So taking one of many shots of Olbas oil during his game.

He was continually making a move and walking away taking his "medicine," and each time he got back to the board he quickly made a move. Really quickly, actually. "I wanted to keep the pressure," So said.

So had sacrificed an exchange, and felt he was playing for two results. However, analysis showed that a loss was a possible third result. USA escaped in this one!

So was still standing up when his opponent resigned.

Nakamura, who also caught a cold this week, then held that endgame of his rather easily to get the 2.5 on the scoreboard. Shankland's loss didn't matter anymore. Well, maybe it did, for the tiebreaks...

Two match points for USA! But what was Ukraine doing?

It was clear that Ukraine was winning its match as well. GM Ruslan Ponomariov had quickly drawn with GM Luka Lenic, but both GM Anton Korobov and GM Andrei Volokitin won their games. Scoring a stunning 8.5/9 and a 2992 performance rating, the latter was by far Ukraine's most valuable player.

Andrei Volokitin didn't get much exposure but was one of the absolute stars of this Olympiad.

The last game still underway was GM Pavel Eljanov vs GM Alexander Beliavsky, one of this Olympiad's famous veteran players. The big question was whether Ukraine would win this match 2.5-1.5, or 3-1, which would obviously help its tiebreak mentioned at the start of this report.

But there was more. Since for each team the opponent who scored the lowest number of match points would be excluded, matches on lower boards were relevant for calculating the tiebreak.

Particularly Germany vs Estonia was one to keep an eye on; if Germany would lose,  Jordan would be counted for Ukraine's tiebreak, and in that case Ukraine would win gold. Some games were a bit crazy, but in the end Germany won that match.

It took several hours for everyone to find out that USA's 2.5-1.5 win was enough for gold. This reporter didn't want to wait and created his own Excel sheet, and got the same results as someone else in the press room and some people on Twitter: the Americans would win by nine Sonneborn-Berger points. That turned out to be right. And Eljanov won, by the way.

Eljanov won, and for a moment Ukraine thought it had won gold.

Besides their medals, the American players and the captain, IM John Donaldson, all got a $4,000 bonus from the United States Chess Federation.

Ukraine won silver, and Russia bronze.

Donaldson: "I don't understand why everyone is always talking so negatively about Russia. They usually play well at team events. Even here, on the whole they are winning rating points. As the top seed.

"Things are getting a bit random when you keep on adding teams while decreasing the number of rounds. The tiebreak system could be debated till the end of time."

Donaldson also pointed out that, since things are played over 11 rounds, at this Olympiad it's the first time that a team (in fact two) reached 20 match points.

John Donaldson: "The tiebreak system could be debated till the end of time."

At a press conference, Donaldson said: "It's regrettable that when you have two teams play so well that you have to have one of them finish first. When Ukraine came through with that victory, I knew it was going to be really close."

Donaldson's manual calculations were accurate.

Russia's star player was GM Vladimir Kramnik. Having already regained the number-two spot in the rating list, he added another fine win with the white pieces today. A conceptual masterpiece.

India and Norway played 2-2 and finished fourth and fifth respectively. A fantastic result for Norway, who only once finished better than 20th place at an Olympiad: 11th at Haifa 1976, where USA won its last gold in the absence of the Soviet Union but also e.g. Yugoslavia and Hungary.

GM Magnus Carlsen must be very satisfied. Personally he improved as well, finishing without losing a single game, unlike at previous Olympiads. He is also a real team player, and seeing his now-chess-loving country do well must be a great feeling.

Today Carlsen was better against GM Pentala Harikrishna, but the Indian continued his good form and held the draw.

A 2-2 between Norway and India.

GM Aryan Tari lost to GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, but that led to the 2-2 because GM Frode Urkedal had opened the score after what will probably be ChessCenter's Blunder of the Week by S.P. Sethuraman:

When you look at the top 10 of the final standings, two more teams stand out: Turkey finishing in sixth place, and Peru, without GM Julio Granda, in 10th place as the highest Spanish-speaking country. Poland and France eventually finished exactly on their seed number.

The young Iranian squad did very well too, finishing in 16th place as the 46th seed. Both IM Shahin Lorparizangeneh and the untitled Parham Maghsoodloo scored GM norms.

After winning its first Olympic gold in the open section in Tromsø, China failed to make the top-10 two years later. Greece came 18th but will always remember this one for not losing a single match.

Some disappointing results: Azerbaijan (4th seed, 12th place), Spain (14th seed, 31st place), Netherlands (11th seed, 36th place), and Germany (13th seed, 37th place). Of the teams that played 11 matches, Congo and Swaziland shared last place finishing last with one win, two ties and eight losses.

Final Standings Men (Top 20)

Rk.	SNo	Team	Team	+	=	-	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4
1	2		USA	9	2	0	20	413,5	31,5	152
2	5		Ukraine	10	0	1	20	404,5	31	153
3	1		Russia	8	2	1	18	419	32	151
4	9		India	7	2	2	16	350,5	27,5	158
5	12		Norway	7	2	2	16	344,5	26,5	147
6	19		Turkey	7	2	2	16	341,5	30	135
7	7		Poland	7	2	2	16	331	29,5	132
8	8		France	6	4	1	16	326,5	30	131
9	6		England	7	2	2	16	323	26,5	144
10	34		Peru	7	2	2	16	306	26,5	139
11	25		Canada	7	1	3	15	368,5	30,5	148
12	4		Azerbaijan 1	7	1	3	15	352	28,5	149
13	3		China	7	1	3	15	348	29	146
14	23		Belarus	6	3	2	15	332	27,5	142
15	10		Hungary	7	1	3	15	329	29	136
16	46		Iran	6	3	2	15	318	28	138
17	21		Latvia	7	1	3	15	316	26,5	140
18	27		Greece	4	7	0	15	309,5	25,5	142
19	39		Paraguay	7	1	3	15	298,5	26,5	135
20	29		Slovenia	6	3	2	15	294	27	137

(Full final standings here.)

The winning team, from left to right: Ray Robson, Hikaru Nakamura, Sam Shankland,
Fabiano Caruana, captain John Donaldson, Wesley So, coach Aleksandr Lenderman.

Board medals, open section:

GM Eugenio Torre, at 64 years old, played his 23rd Olympiad, and scored a spectacular 10/11, winning 46.9 rating points. This was good for the bronze medal on third board, where rating performance is the first criteria. Below you can find the gold, silver and bronze medals scored for the individual boards this year. 

Board 1

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	GM		Jobava, Baadur	2665	2926	10	8	80	2686
2	GM		Dominguez Perez, Leinier	2720	2839	10	7,5	75	2646
3	GM		Caruana, Fabiano	2808	2838	10	7	70	2689

2. Dominguez, 1. Jobava, 3. Caruana.

Board 2

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	GM		Kramnik, Vladimir	2808	2903	8	6,5	81,3	2652
2	GM		Kovalyov, Anton	2617	2852	10	8	80	2612
3	GM		Cori, Jorge	2609	2810	10	8	80	2570

Board 3

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	GM		So, Wesley	2782	2896	10	8,5	85	2600
2	GM		Almasi, Zoltan	2684	2845	9	7,5	83,3	2572
3	GM		Torre, Eugenio	2447	2836	11	10	90,9	2453

2. Zoltan Almasi, 1. Wesley So, 3. Eugenio Torre. A special moment with the two Pinoy grandmasters shaking hands on stage.

Board 4

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	GM		Fressinet, Laurent	2664	2809	8	7	87,5	2425
2	GM		Nepomniachtchi, Ian	2740	2804	10	8	80	2564
3	GM		Indjic, Aleksandar	2548	2786	10	8,5	85	2490

Board 5

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	GM		Volokitin, Andrei	2647	2992	9	8,5	94,4	2548
2	IM		Khader, Sami	2373	2932	8	8	100	1978
3	GM		Aleksandrov, Aleksej	2547	2760	8	6,5	81,3	2509

"We don't have to invade your country after all."

Women's section:

Where much of the drama happened off the board in the open section, it was on the board in the women's section. After four hours of play, all four games in the top clash between China and Russia were still underway.

The reigning champions started with a two-point deficit, and so the goal was clear: win this match! And things went well for them on board four, where WGM Natalija Pogonina beat IM Guo Qi. The battle between World Champion GM Hou Yifan and ex-world champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk eventually ended in a draw after 65 moves.

Yep, that's an important game!

However, the other two games were won by China, who thus clinched this Olympiad with a three-point margin. Remarkably, the two winners in that last match, GM Ju Wenjun and WGM Tan Zhongyi, were the only players who played all 11 matches for China.

Only Tan played a really good tournament, winning 12.1 Elo. Guo played at her rating level, and, remarkably, Hou, Ju and GM Zhao Xue all lost rating points in Baku!

Ju Wenjun scored the decisive second game point for China, who only needed 2-2 today.

And so, after finishing second behind Russia for three straight Olympiads, China finally nailed it again, after winning four golds in 1998-2004 and a bronze in 2006.

"We were very lucky to win considering how we were starting," said Hou at a press conference, referring to their 2-2 against Vietnam in round three. She wasn't happy with her play in Baku. "My performance this time was not great."

The reigning women's world champion also confirmed once again that she's not intending to defend her title under the current circumstances: "If the women system will continue to be like this I will not join the cycle."

Asked whether she thinks she can become an overall top-10 player, she said: "For that I have to become a more universal player."

Hou will have some time to focus on chess though; she has just finished her undergraduate studies in international affairs and will take a one-year break. After that, she hopes to start at an American university, she told Chess.com late last year.

Hou Yifan at the press conference.

By winning silver, Poland scored its biggest success ever. The country had won the bronze medals twice, at La Valetta 1980 and Bled 2002.

Especially boards four and five, WGM Klaudia Kulon and WIM Mariola Wozniak, played amazing tournaments with a rating gain of 45 and 78.8 Elo points respectively. Kulon played all 11 games and scored 9 points. Here's her win from the last round:

Ukraine was the only other team with 17 points and took bronze this year, just like two and four years ago. It won silver eight years back and gold a decade ago in Turin. Also in Manilla 1992 the Ukrainian women won the silver medal.

The best player for Ukraine was GM Anna Muzychuk on board one, who scored 7,5/10 and won 10.8 Elo points. Today she beat another ex-world champion in the match against Bulgaria: GM Antoaneta Stefanova, who was perhaps a bit too creative in the opening.

Muzychuk (r.) vs Stefanova.

In this group, India and the USA eventually finished on their seed numbers. Vietnam, Azerbaijan and Israel all did quite well. Georgia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Germany, Spain and Turkey disappointed.

The U.S. women's team with captain Yasser Seirawan.

Final Standings Women (Top 20)

Rk.	SNo	Team	Team	+	=	-	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4
1	1		China	9	2	0	20	416	31	149
2	7		Poland	8	1	2	17	427,5	33	152
3	2		Ukraine	7	3	1	17	404,5	30,5	156
4	3		Russia	7	2	2	16	380,5	29	157
5	5		India	6	4	1	16	342,5	28	146
6	6		USA	7	2	2	16	332,5	27	149
7	19		Vietnam	7	2	2	16	328	27,5	145
8	16		Azerbaijan 1	7	2	2	16	309	25,5	151
9	18		Israel	7	2	2	16	307,5	26,5	137
10	4		Georgia	7	1	3	15	356,5	30,5	137
11	13		Iran	7	1	3	15	337,5	31	127
12	12		Lithuania	7	1	3	15	324	29	131
13	27		Serbia	7	1	3	15	321,5	28,5	134
14	23		France	7	1	3	15	320	29	133
15	9		Bulgaria	6	3	2	15	309,5	27	130
16	8		Hungary	6	3	2	15	304	26	142
17	36		Belarus	7	1	3	15	296	28	128
18	24		Cuba	7	1	3	15	272	25,5	128
19	11		Romania	5	4	2	14	325	26	151
20	15		Mongolia	6	2	3	14	301,5	27,5	130

(Full final standings here.)

Finally it's China again!

Board medals, women section

Board 1

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	GM		Muzychuk, Anna	2550	2629	10	7,5	75	2436
2	GM		Hou, Yifan	2658	2547	8	5,5	68,8	2404
3	GM		Cramling, Pia	2444	2537	11	8,5	77,3	2326

2. Hou Yifan, 1. Anna Muzychuk, 3. Pia Cramling

Board 2

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	GM		Gunina, Valentina	2520	2643	10	8	80	2403
2	GM		Ju, Wenjun	2583	2501	11	7,5	68,2	2366
3	IM		Daulyte, Deimante	2421	2481	10	8	80	2230

Board 3

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	WGM		Mammadova, Gulnar	2304	2559	9	7	77,8	2331
2	WGM		Szczepkowska-Horowska, Karina	2409	2547	8	6,5	81,3	2279
3	WGM		Nguyen, Thi Mai Hung	2316	2442	11	8	72,7	2256

Board 4

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	WGM		Tan, Zhongyi	2475	2565	11	9	81,8	2287
2	IM		Batsiashvili, Nino	2474	2533	10	9	90	2130
3	WGM		Kulon, Klaudia	2346	2506	11	9	81,8	2241

Board 5

Rk.	Title	Team	Name	Rtg	Rp	Games	Pts.	%	RtgAvg
1	IM		Guo, Qi	2417	2394	8	5,5	68,8	2232
2	WIM		Navrotescu, Andreea-Cristiana	2235	2285	10	7	70	2115
3	IM		Gara, Anita	2355	2277	8	5	62,5	2164

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