Tromso Olympics, Round 6: Azerbaijan, Cuba Lead
The Olympiad is in an especially fun stage for fans. It's far enough in that lots of top teams are battling with each other, but still early enough that a few semi-outsiders are still hanging on to their medal hopes. The Serbs and the Romanians are in the tie for the 3rd-12th places, and Bosnia, Canada and Qatar are among the teams giving the favorites a consistently hard time.
Overall though, the top teams are justifying their ratings. Azerbaijan, led by a very much in-form Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, crushed Georgia 3.5-.5. Cuba won by the same margin, but against the considerably lower-rated team from Kazakhstan. They will face off in tomorrow's games.
Top-seeded Russia has the best tiebreak score of the next group down, but while they defeated Uzbekistan it wasn't so easy. Vladimir Kramnik was crushed by Rustam Kasimdzhanov, but was avenged on board 2 when Alexander Grischuk whipped Anton Filippov with a beautiful attack. Ian Nepomniachtchi won on board 4 to put the Russians up 2-1, but Peter Svidler could very easily have lost to Marat Dzhumaev. Svidler put up great resistance, but Dzhumaev's position was clearly winning for a long time, and he could have won in spite of it despite Svidler's efforts. In the end though, Svidler's persistence paid off, and with the draw the Russians won their match 2.5-1.5.
Magnus Carlsen already played Levon Aronian, and today he took on Fabiano Caruana. In both games he had the black pieces, but this time - using the 3...Qd8 Scandinavian of all things - he managed to slowly grind Caruana down. (Caruana enjoyed a small advantage into the middlegame though, despite the sure surprise, so 3...Qd8 fans shouldn't try to wrest this game for propaganda purposes. The real lesson of this game is a familiar one: Carlsen can win against everyone playing just about anything.)
The United States defeated Paraguary 3-1, but unfortunately the Greeks lost Qatar 2.5-1.5. Drat.
In the women's section, nothing is new: China and Russia won their matches and remained perfect, a state of affairs that will finally come to an end next round when they play each other. Hou Yifan won her individual game, over a second GM (Judit Polgar has yet to play a GM in the open section, though she did play a highly-rated IM today), and remains perfect in the event. The American women beat the Estonians, so they're still very much in the medal hunt.
The download page for games and the tournament bulletin is here. If nothing else, do check out the Kasimdzhanov and Grischuk wins!
Reader Comments (1)
Greece did not lose Qatar; they never owned it.