World Team Ch: Armenia beats USA, Russia leads
![World Team Ch](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/proxy/www.chessvibes.com/plaatjes/worldteams10/http/346be23eb1.jpg)
Round 8
Until yesterday he had been leading his team with a fine score of 5.5/6, but in round 8 the fun was over for Hikaru Nakamura. Against Levon Aronian he went for the King's Indian one more time; an opening which definitely suits his style, as he has shown with two brilliancies in six months. However, Armenia's number one played the 9.Ne1 line, which is in fact theoretically more critical according to our editors of ChessVibes Openings. They covered the popular 13.Rc1 Ng6 14.c5 Nf6 15.Nb5!? idea in several issues, but Aronian went for the older set-up with Qc2 and Rfc1. Together with his new move 19.Ncd1 White had very nice piece coordination and so it looks like another good way to reach a solid plus against the KID. However, the question remains if Black can hold it. Deprived from the break g5-g4, Nakamura made many defensive moves on the queenside and even brought his king's bishop over. It seems that only after he accepted Aronian's exchange sacrifice he started to face real problems.![World Team Ch](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/proxy/www.chessvibes.com/plaatjes/aronian-nakamura/http/ff76fa3473.jpg)
The game looked like a very smooth victory for Aronian, but didn't he give Black a chance to get back in the game on move 41? Nakamura missed 41...Nd6, and with draws on the other three boards, both match points went to the Armenians. The Russians crushed Egypt and so they took over the lead in the standings, with 13 points out of 8 matches. Amin played a fine game and drew with Black against Grischuk, but to have three IMs on boards 2-4 is, well, not exactly strong enough against three Russian super grandmasters.The Greeks couldn't deliver another surprise; both Banikas and Halkias were not in top shape and lost without a real fight against Radjabov and Mamedyarov respectively. Kotronias, however, was completely winning against Gashimov, with three connected pawns for a piece.
![World Team Ch](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/proxy/www.chessvibes.com/plaatjes/gashimov-kotronias/http/f2775fd291.jpg)
A last fragment comes from the match Turkey-Brazil, which ended in 1.5-2.5.
![World Team Ch](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/proxy/www.chessvibes.com/plaatjes/lima-esen/http/eba8e87dbd.jpg)
Pairings of today's last round: Egypt-Armenia, Israel-Russia, Brazil-India, Greece-Turkey and USA-Azerbaijan.
World Team Ch 2010 | Results round 8
![](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/proxy/www.chessvibes.com/tabellen/worldteams09_res_r8/http/c0512ec125.jpg)
World Team Ch 2010 | Round 8 standings
![](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/proxy/www.chessvibes.com/tabellen/worldteams09_stand_r8/http/2d8789be98.jpg)