The U.S. Olympic Team: Win One, Lose One?
The good news: World #6 Levon Aronian has completed his transfer from the Armenian federation to that of the USA (well, mostly), allowing him to represent us in the 2022 Chess Olympiad. If current ratings hold, we'd have the #4 (Caruana), #6 (Aronian), #8 (So), and #15 (Dominguez) players in the world. That's the good news of the December 2021 rating list for the United States. The bad news? Hikaru Nakamura has dropped off, as - believe it or not - he hasn't played a rated classical game in two years. (He would have been #19). I realized he hadn't played in a classical tournament in a while, but two years!?
You know what this means, of course. Rex Sinquefield has to recruit Alireza Firouzja to play for the U.S. - it's his patriotic duty!
Reader Comments (2)
Nakamura is doing very well with all his web ventures and with blitz and bullet, but I, for one, hope he gets back to classical chess soon.
I always considered Levon Aronian, both a great player and a great person. I truly appreciate he chose the USA as his new home.