It has been a while, but regular blogging should resume in earnest for the rest of the 44th FIDE Chess Olympiad. This massive event started yesterday (Friday) in Chennai, India, and while the absence of teams from Russia and China might seem to make the race for first a foregone conclusion, today’s action demonstrated pretty clearly that this isn’t so.
The first round is guaranteed to feature blowouts by the nature of the Swiss system, and that’s just what happened. Round 2 was more competitive, but it’s still supposed to be smooth sailing. This was not the case for the top-seeded team from the United States, however. Facing the renowned Paraguayan team, which they outrated by an average of 300 rating points per board, the U.S. eked out a 2.5-1.5 win.
On board one, Axel Bachmann outplayed Fabiano Caruana on the black side of a Ruy Lopez sideline, quickly obtaining the advantage. An inaccuracy let Caruana achieve a draw in what could have been a game with some suffering. Having the white pieces was no advantage on board two, either, as Neuris Delgado was quickly lost against Wesley So. So was still winning at the end, when he allowed a draw by repetition. I’m not sure if he did this because he knew it would clinch match victory or if he was uncertain about what was going on - perhaps it’s a bit of both. On board three, the U.S. got the job done, as Leinier Dominguez smoothly outplayed Jose Cubas to give his team their margin of victory. Board four, by contrast, was anything but smooth, as Ruben Zacarias was better throughout and even winning at one moment (27.Ne2!). It was a poor day at the office for Shankland against a player rated only 2175, and for that matter his win in round 1 against a player rated 2107 was shaky as well. (Also in the “bad form” department was Levon Aronian failing to defeat his 2315-rated opponent in round 1.) Hopefully he’ll play himself into form by the time he’s playing the big guns.
I’m going to try to look at a lot of the games, but there are so many (368 per round) that I’m not going to catch them all, and even when I do “see” a game there are bound to be things I overlook. So please, readers, if there are games that all of us should see, mention them in the comments! I’ll try to post the games afterwards if you do.
Meanwhile, here are the U.S. team’s games thus far, plus Magnus Carlsen’s first game in the event, played in round 2 against Uruguay. (Back later today with some catch-up blogging.)