Here were the day's results at the World Team Championship:
India 2 - Armenia 2
Russia 3½ - Turkey ½
Egypt 1 - Azerbaijan 3
Israel 1½ - United States 2½
Brazil 1 - Greece 3
Taking the matches in order: The India-Armenia draw was a bit of a shocker. Akopian won with a nice finish against Harikrishna, but India equalized when Sasikiran beat Aronian in a rook vs. rook and pawn ending that should have been drawn. It wasn't trivial, but it wasn't out of Aronian's pay grade, either, and he had loads of time to work it out.
Russia's win was no surprise, and neither was Azerbaijan's. However, the latter's one blemish occurred when Gashimov lost his third straight game. (This is putting a real crimp in his plans for world domination, but he still has 721 days to go.)
The United States win was an upset, but well-earned. Robson worked to hold the draw on round 4, while Onischuk won on board 2 (the only one where the US had a [very slight] rating edge) and Hess lost on board 3 (to Sutovsky). The deciding game was also the first to finish, Nakamura's brilliant (or at least flashy) win against Gelfand on the Black side of a Classical King's Indian. This win probably didn't take as much mental labor as his spectacular win over Beliavsky in the same variation last September, but was if anything even showier.
Finally, Greece got back on the right foot, crushing Brazil despite being outrated by an average of 25 points per board. Especially impressive - but strange - was Fier-Banikas. Fier managed to come up with two novelties in the second game, both of which came from the same position! The first was neutral and the second was bad, which just goes to show that newer doesn't mean better. The game featured some very nice geometry, and is worth seeing.
(And because it's worth seeing, I've included it with my notes, along with the two Armenia-India games mentioned above and Gelfand-Nakamura. Click here.)
Here are the overall standings:
1. Russia 8 (based on two points for a team win, one for a draw, zero for a loss), 13 (total individual points, which is the first tiebreaker)
2. USA 8, 12½
3. Armenia 7, 12
4. India 7, 11
5. Azerbaijan 6, 11½
6. Israel 6, 11
7. Greece 4, 10
8. Brazil 2, 8
9. Egypt 2, 7
10. Turkey 0, 4