World Team Championship, Final Round
As mentioned in the previous post, Armenia won the World Team Championship after drawing all four games (and thus the match) with Ukraine. That guaranteed that even if the Chinese team won - and they did - they would still finish in front of them by half a point (or a point, given the event's preference for 2-1-0 scoring, which I will now promptly ignore the rest of the way).
China's win came by the narrowest of margins over Hungary. Leko's game was drawn, but the other three finished with a winner. Balogh won a fascinating game over Yu Yangyi to put the Hungarians in front, but then Wang Yue beat Almasi and, in a real surprise, Polgar got ground down on the White side of a Petroff by Li Chao.
So Armenia was first, China was second, and Ukraine's fate came down to the Russia-India match, which was the last to finish. With a win Russia would probably steal the bronze medals on tiebreak, and considering that India was tied for next to last with Israel, only ahead of Egypt, that seemed a pretty sure bet. A sure bet...but a losing one. Grischuk won on board one with Black, but that was it by way of wins. Vitiugov drew on board, but these results only served to keep the match equal, as the first game to finish was Ganguly's 24-move massacre of Peter Svidler on board 3. That left only Nepomniachtchi-Sasikiran. Sasikiran missed a really easy win (50...Re2+, and a few more after that too), but that only delayed the inevitable. (Moreover, "Nepo" had no winning chances whatsoever at that point anyway, and from the medals perspective a draw was no better than a loss for the Russians.) Eventually Sasikiran won the game and India the match, leaving Ukraine in clear third.
The U.S. improved its lot in the last round with a 2.5-1.5 victory over Israel. Robert Hess got his moment to shine, defeating Evgeny Postny on board 4 in the only decisive game of the match.
Finally, Azerbaijan beat Egypt 2.5-1.5, but super-IM Samy Shoker pulled another big upset out of his hat, beating Shakhriyar Mamedyarov with the black pieces. In fairness, Shoker wasn't successful in all his games in the event. He lost a "normal" game in round 7 and was crushed by Polgar in round 8, and he lost in an earlier round as well. Still, it was an outstanding performance overall and I'm sure he achieved a GM norm here.
Final Standings:
1. Armenia 7 (of 9)
2. China 6.5
3. Ukraine 6
4-6. Russia, Hungary, USA 5
7. Azerbaijan 4.5
8. India 3.5
9. Israel 2.5
10. Egypt 0
Reader Comments (1)
Armenia surpassed China in match points, but they finished tied in game points at 22.5 each.
China seemed to have selected its players at least as much for their potential as for their strength now.
Its players are very young (birth years given) (1 Wang Hao 1989, 2 Wang Yue 1987, 3 Li Chao B 1989,
4 Yu Yangyi 1994, 5 Ding Liren 1992), giving an average birth year of 1990 (rounded off), with the
senior member, Wang Yue, at age 24. Given that the youngest player, Yu Yangyi (2672 FIDE),
scored subpar (compared to the others) at 2/6, one wonders whether his replacement by
a veteran (born in 1985) such as Bu Xiangzhi (2675 FIDE) would have made a difference.
Or would the former prodigy, Bu Xiangzhi (who was rated 2714 FIDE in October 2008), be
considered a "has been" already at age 26? My general impression of junior players is that
one cannot be too certain of how they will perform in strong team events. Sometimes they
upset their higher rated older opponents and sometimes they suffer disappointing losses--
both results are parts of the learning process.