Olympics, Day 1: No Upsets

At least no team upsets; individuals were nicked.

In pretty much any open Swiss event, round 1 tends to go overwhelmingly in the favorites’ favor, and that’s how things played out on the first day of the Olympiad. A few grandmasters were nicked for half-points and, on rare occasions, the full point, but their teams all came through.

A quick note about the U.S. team, which probably had the worst time among the elites. On board 1 Wesley So was held to a draw fairly easily by a player rated 2376, while on board 3 Levon Aronian was completely lost against a 2122-rated opponent (and even after escaping the lost position the game seemed to be headed for a draw for a long time before the Panamanian player finally cracked). Not good. I present the U.S. team’s games here, and also give Johan-Sebastian [not-Bach] Christiansen’s lively win over his South Korean opponent. Christiansen plays some of the most entertaining chess nowadays, and he reminds me of the Emil Sutovsky of about 10-15 years ago: a very strong player with volatile results, whose games are always entertainingly tactical.

I had to guess yesterday’s pairings (and was incorrect); this time around I was able to find the pairings for the next round. Here’s what we’ve got at the top:

1. USA vs. Singapore

2. Hungary [honorary board 2 by virtue of being the host country; they’re actually the 9th seed] vs. Peru

3. Iceland vs. India

4. China vs. Chile

5. Egypt vs. Uzbekistan

6. Netherlands vs. Belgium

7. Canada vs. Norway

8. Germany vs. Philippines

9. Mexico vs. England

10. Portugal vs. Iran

The odds are still heavily in favor of the higher-rated teams in these matches, but there’s already some serious leveling-up. Iceland, for instance, is fielding three GMs, so while an upset is highly unlikely it is within the realm of possibility. (After seeing Notre Dame lose against a team they were expected to beat by 28 points or more last Saturday, I’m loath to count any unhatched chickens.)