World Team Championship, Round 5: Russia, U.S.A. Lead
Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 10:47PM Here were the day's results at the World Team Championship:
India 2 - Armenia 2
Russia 3½ - Turkey ½
Egypt 1 - Azerbaijan 3
Israel 1½ - United States 2½
Brazil 1 - Greece 3
Taking the matches in order: The India-Armenia draw was a bit of a shocker. Akopian won with a nice finish against Harikrishna, but India equalized when Sasikiran beat Aronian in a rook vs. rook and pawn ending that should have been drawn. It wasn't trivial, but it wasn't out of Aronian's pay grade, either, and he had loads of time to work it out.
Russia's win was no surprise, and neither was Azerbaijan's. However, the latter's one blemish occurred when Gashimov lost his third straight game. (This is putting a real crimp in his plans for world domination, but he still has 721 days to go.)
The United States win was an upset, but well-earned. Robson worked to hold the draw on round 4, while Onischuk won on board 2 (the only one where the US had a [very slight] rating edge) and Hess lost on board 3 (to Sutovsky). The deciding game was also the first to finish, Nakamura's brilliant (or at least flashy) win against Gelfand on the Black side of a Classical King's Indian. This win probably didn't take as much mental labor as his spectacular win over Beliavsky in the same variation last September, but was if anything even showier.
Finally, Greece got back on the right foot, crushing Brazil despite being outrated by an average of 25 points per board. Especially impressive - but strange - was Fier-Banikas. Fier managed to come up with two novelties in the second game, both of which came from the same position! The first was neutral and the second was bad, which just goes to show that newer doesn't mean better. The game featured some very nice geometry, and is worth seeing.
(And because it's worth seeing, I've included it with my notes, along with the two Armenia-India games mentioned above and Gelfand-Nakamura. Click here.)
Here are the overall standings:
1. Russia 8 (based on two points for a team win, one for a draw, zero for a loss), 13 (total individual points, which is the first tiebreaker)
2. USA 8, 12½
3. Armenia 7, 12
4. India 7, 11
5. Azerbaijan 6, 11½
6. Israel 6, 11
7. Greece 4, 10
8. Brazil 2, 8
9. Egypt 2, 7
10. Turkey 0, 4
Nakamura, brilliancy 
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Reader Comments (9)
In the final position of Sasikirian-Aronian, for a draw it is enough to move all pieces two files left (making 'g' pawn 'e' pawn). I think
this is more important theoretical position, as it is exception to the three-files rule.
The rating performances after this round are quite interesting- several players are performing abover 2800.
Mamedyarov - 3375
Nakamura - 2998
Onischuk - 2994
Grischuk - 2982
Malakhov - 2900
Sutovsky - 2879
Vitiugov - 2823
Sasikiran - 2818
Of course, its just 5 games (and not all of these have played all 5); but it is interesting to see these players scoring so high in performance. Mamedyarov particularly.
Nakamura (but not Gelfand!?) was probably familiar with the "low-profile predecessor" Roussel Roozmon - Charbonneau. Not only did he play in the same event, but - as mentioned in his blog - he stayed with Charbonneau's family before round 1.
As far as Gashimov jokes are concerned: give him a break .... at least you now realized that he gave himself two years to become #1. He has one bad event, his last one was 1/5 in the Spanish league in 2008. Maybe he is sick, but Azerbaijan cannot afford to give him some rest days?
Congrats to Greece again - taking history into account, beating Armenia today may mean even more to them than winning against Russia? Maybe they should play a friendly match against Ukraine some time soon?
Thomas, I always "realized" that his prediction was 1-2 years. Not two years, but 1-2 years.
I was referring to your post from Dec 20, 2009 on - among other things - the European Rapid Cup, where you put "One year away" (and a link to the interview) in place of Gashimov's name. The rest may be a matter of semantics, he actually merely said "I can become #1 in 1-2 years" NOT "I will become #1". And this was answering a trick question where _any_ possible answer would be held against him - unless he had been alert enough to say something as "it's too early to tell".
Unfortunately, his answer has tricked me into finding the claim slightly preposterous. (Not impossible or insane, but improbable and unreasonable.) Sorry if you don't like it (I get that you don't), but I promise to eat lots of crow if he achieves it! Note that "can" is much more assertive than "could" - the former suggests that it's somehow up to him, while the latter generally indicates only that it's not impossible.
A last comment. 1-2 years means that he might do it on one year, might do it in two years, or any time in between. So I've referred to it all three ways.
you can't calculate Mamedaarov's performance rating cause perfect scores such as 5/5 are undefined. They roughly just take the highest rating opponent you beat and add 400 pts to him.so 2732+400 would be 3132. Curious how you got 3375? Either way you can now calculate a real performance rating since he drew today to be 5.5/6
Those were on the official website...