Olympiad, Round 6: Russia-Armenia Match Drawn; They Co-Lead with Azerbaijan
Monday, September 3, 2012 at 5:59PM After an underachieving start at the 2012 Olympiad (four draws in four games, including two blown wins) Vladimir Kramnik came up big against the biggest fish available. He defeated Levon Aronian on the white side of an Exchange Slav(!), and pretty easily too. That put Russia in great shape, but on board two the Armenians caught up. Sergei Movsesian hadn't been playing well (winless at -1) while Alexander Grischuk had gone 4.5/5, but there's a reason they play the games. Movsesian won, and as Sergey Karjakin got nothing with White while Dmitry Jakovenko had to sweat to achieve a draw, the match was tied.
Both teams were perfect going into the round, but having given up a point apiece (on 2-1-0 scoring) they've been caught by the Azeris. They defeated the Croatian team 3-1, with Teimour Radjabov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov both smashing their opponents with White. Mamedyarov is having a great event with 4.5/5, but Radjabov is doing even better: 5/5! If Radjabov's event ended now, he'd join the ultra-elite crowd as one of the very few players in chess history to make 2800. (If I'm not forgetting anyone, the only official members of the group are Garry Kasparov, Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen and Aronian.)
So the leaders have 11/12, a point ahead of China (drubbed Bosnia & Herzegovina 3.5-.5), the Philippines (2.5-1.5 winners over Bulgaria), Ukraine (defeated Montenegro 3-1), Hungary (3-1 over Poland), and Spain (nipped the Czechs 2.5-1.5, and this despite losing Alexei Shirov back to Latvia!). The U.S. continued its drawing rut, drawing its third consecutive match (and as in round 5, by drawing all four games).
Leading Round 7 Pairings:
Azerbaijan 11 - Russia 11
China 10 - Armenia 11
Philippines 10 - Hungary 10
Ukraine 10 - Spain 10
On board 7, the U.S.A. has "White" against Turkey, which means boards 1 and 3 will have the white pieces.
Reader Comments (2)
Interesting to see the Philippines doing so well (and with Eugenio Torre still in the side), though it could have been different today had Georgiev not dropped a huge clanger against them (worth a quick look).
I was actually watching that Georgiev game at the time – that backwards discovered check with the knight was a nice little trick combo.
Nice too to see some of the big guns going for it - Kramnik beating Aronian, and Aronian beating Ivanchuk. The Movsesian-Grischuk game was good too.