China Wins World Team Championship
At times the World Team Championship is a very prestigious event with many of the world's top players in action, but this year's edition was considerably weakened due to the overlap with the Grand Chess Tour event in Paris. While the winning Chinese team brought its four highest-rated players - Ding Liren, Yu Yangyi, Wei Yi, and Li Chao - the Russians were without Vladimir Kramnik, Sergey Karjakin, and Alexander Grischuk; the U.S. played without Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana, and Hikaru Nakamura; Ukraine was missing Vassily Ivanchuk (playing a match with David Navara) and Pavel Eljanov; Norway missed Magnus Carlsen, etc.
The Chinese team came in as the favorites, and unsurprisingly, took first. They drew two matches, to Turkey(!) and the United States. The Russian team was the second seed, but they are still the deepest chess country when it comes to top players. They were still able to field an all-2700 team and came in second. They too drew against Turkey(!), and the difference-maker was their loss to China in round 7 (of 9). The games on the first three boards were drawn, and on board 4 Li Chao defeated Vladimir Fedoseev on the white side of the Berlin ending with surprising ease.
Poland came in third, India fourth, and the surprising Turkish team came in fifth. As for the U.S., it was a dismal event. They tied for 6th-8th, coming in 8th (out of 10) on tiebreaks. They won three matches, drew two, and lost five, including a 0-4 shellacking by the Russians in the last round - the only shutout match of the entire event. Ouch.
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