World Team Championship: Ukraine Leads After 5 of 9 Rounds
The World Team Championship has just passed its halfway point going into tomorrow's (Sunday's) rest day, and Ukraine leads with a perfect 10 team points, meaning they have won all of their matches. Except for the 3-1 victory over Germany in round 4 they've been ekeing out 2.5-1.5 wins, but if one wins them all it doesn't matter if it's by a nose or a mile. The Russians have bounced back from their loss to the U.S. in round 2 with wins over China, Azerbaijan and Germany, and now they're in clear second with 7 match points. After that there's a three-way tie for third with the Netherlands, Armenia and China all with 6 match points.
The Armenians could have been tied for second if Levon Aronian won today against Rauf Mamedov. That game was long headed for a draw, and when it reached the ending of rook and bishop (for Aronian) vs. rook it remained theoretically drawn. Aronian achieved nothing for a long time, but as often happens the defender tires or gets confused and the strong side makes progress. Eventually Aronian achieved a winning position and was a handful of moves away from mating or winning the rook...but the 50 move rule intervened: draw.
Aronian's tournament has otherwise been very good, and there is now some space between him and Vladimir Kramnik on the live rating list. Or make that between him and Hikaru Nakamura, who is currently #3 in the world. Nakamura has been going up, and despite losing to Aronian in round 3 his highlights include wins over Kramnik in round 2 and Li Chao today. (Despite Nakamura's success, the U.S. team has only 4 match points: wins over Russian and Egypt but losses to Ukraine, Armenia and China.) Kramnik, on the other hand, is winless so far (-1 =3, took round 5 off) but the remaining Russians are playing well.
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