Most, but not all. The main horror story was Norway’s, in which the GOAT’s replacement wound up the goat. Magnus Carlsen sat out a second straight round, and Johan-Sebastian Christiansen wound up losing on board 1 to Canada’s top board, resulting in a 2-2 tie. The rest of the top 10 got through with varying degrees of ease, with the Dutch and French teams only defeating Belgium and Paraguay by the slimmest margin, 2.5-1.5.
At the top, things went pretty smoothly. The U.S. and India bageled their opponents 4-0. For the U.S. it looked like it would be 3-1, as their white games finished in wins while the black games seemed destined for draws. The Singaporeans didn’t manage to hold, though, and they were shut out. India’s victory over Iceland was if anything more impressive, but it’s still early days. China beat Chile 3.5-0.5, with only World Champion Ding Liren (with White) surrendering half a point, and the defending Olympic champs, Uzbekistan, also triumphed 3.5-0.5. (But why did their top player, erstwhile 2700 Bassem Amin, sit out in favor of a 2507? And why isn’t Ahmed Adly, currently rated 2597 and generally rated over 2600, in the Olympiad? I similarly don’t understand why Eric Hansen isn’t playing for Canada.)
Anyway, I’ll stick to presenting the U.S.’s games for now, but I ask again that readers please note any noteworthy games they come across. Post them/about them in the comments to the previous round’s post (for example, if you see some fantastic round 3 games, comment about them in my round 2 post - this post) and I’ll try to include them in the games section of the next post. So: here are the U.S.’s round 2 games, and here are the top pairings for round 3:
Bulgaria - USA (and again the mystery: why isn’t Veselin Topalov playing for Bulgaria?)
Austria - Hungary (remember that Hungary is really the 9th seed, but plays on board two to honor them as the host country)
India - Hungary B
Slovenia - China
Uzbekistan - Croatia
Italy - Netherlands
Lithuania - Germany
England - Denmark
Iran - Georgia
Argentina - Poland