Is there a chance for someone other than India to win the Olympiad? (I mean a real chance.) Perhaps they’re not great, but they seem better than they did before round 9, as the Indian juggernaut was at least held to a draw against Uzbekistan, with all four games ending peacefully. India did most of the pressing, but they could not extract their revenge for their painful loss to the Uzbek team in the 2022 Olympiad - that was the match that resulted in India’s ultimately coming in second while Uzbekistan took gold.
Still, the most important thing for India is that they avoided losing to one of their chief rivals, and they retained a two point lead with two rounds to go. Two other teams (besides Uzbekistan) are within two points: the U.S. and China. Both teams won their matches 2.5-1.5 on the strength of a single win, with the U.S.’s Leinier Dominguez beating Hungary’s Sanan Sjugirov on board three and China’s Wei Yi defeating Iran’s Amin Tabatabei on board two. With the win the U.S. leapfrogged Hungary, which is tied with four other teams a point behind the second-placed triumvirate.
Games later; for now, here are the leading pairings for round 10, the penultimate round. The first is the big one: the top two seeds duking it out. If the U.S. wins, they’re tied for first with India and the winner of the Uzbekistan-China match. On the other hand, if they lose and the Uzbekistan-China match finishes in a draw the gold medal will already belong to the Indians.
India (17) - U.S.A. (15)
Hungary (14) - Serbia (14) [As noted in earlier posts, Hungary, as the host nation, always gets to be on board two; it doesn’t mean that they are “really” on board 2.]
Uzbekistan (15) - China (15)
Ukraine (14) - Armenia (14)
Slovenia (14) - Netherlands (13)