Olympics, Round 3: The Upsets Begin
Netherlands, Germany, France lose matches; England, Iran held to draws.
The absolute favorites roll on, but go past the big four (U.S.A., India, China, and Uzbekistan) and everyone else already looks vulnerable. As for the big four, it was still smooth sailing: Ray Robson gave up a draw on board four against Bulgaria, but the Americans won on boards 1-3. (Incidentally, Fabiano Caruana’s win today, his second in two played games, has him back over 2800 and back into second place in the live ratings.) India followed the same pattern: Vidit Gujrathi drew on board four while the rest of the team swept Hungary’s B team. China gave up a couple of draws in their black games, but won the white ones to defeat Slovenia 3-1. Finally, the Uzbeks also gave up but a single draw - on board 2, in their case - on the way to a 3.5-0.5 drubbing of Croatia.
The good times did not keep rolling for the top seeds. The fifth-seeded Dutch team lost to Italy, and hard: 3-1. Jorden van Foreest won on board 2, but Anish Giri (whose results since winning Wijk aan Zee in 2023 have been awful [by his exalted standards]), Max Warmerdam and Erwin L’ami all lost. The Germans lost on the next board, to Lithuania, 2.5-1.5, with their top player Vincent Keymer taking it on the chin against Titas Stremavicius. (Who? Exactly.) The French are “only” the 13th seed, in the absence of Alireza Firouzja, but they were nonetheless heavy favorites against Montenegro. Nevertheless neither Maxime Vachier-Lagrave nor anyone else managed to win for team France, and on board two Nikita Petrov won to give the underdogs a 2.5-1.5 match victory. On board 8 (really 7, as the board 2 Hungarian A team is the 9th seed) England only managed to draw all its games with Denmark, and on the next board Iran won and lost a game against Georgia.
Here are some games, including Magnus Carlsen’s first effort in the event. And here are the pairings for round 4 for all the teams with perfect match scores:
U.S.A. vs. Ukraine
Hungary vs. Italy [again, Hungary is not really board 2, but they are 3-0 {or rather, 6-0, on the event’s 2-1-0 scoring}]
Serbia vs. India
China vs. Armenia
Vietnam vs. Uzbekistan
Poland vs. Lithuania
Montenegro vs. Azerbaijan
Sweden vs. Spain