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21:52 Tatiana Kosintseva drew her game. Finally. 108 moves. Russia-Mongolia 3.5-0.5. Thanks for watching the online and see you tomorrow!
21:48 We can already say that in the Open section all the main favorites won their matches. On the contrary, in the Women's Olympiad China, Georgia and Ukraine lost a match point each. Oh...and United States drew Uzbekistan!
21:40 Armenia-Spain: 2.5-1.5
21:37 Tatiana Kosintseva's game should be a draw, but let's wait a bit...
21:34 Amazing! Georgia saves the match in the women's section. 2-2 vs Germany.
21:29 China is also on a roll. They defeated Romania 3-1.
21:26 USA-Venezuela: 3.5-0.5
21:25 England-Cuba: 3-1
21:20 Omg! What is going on in Georgia-Germany? The German ladies seemed to be winning 3.5-0.5, but now...
21:17 Russia-Latvia is officially 2.5-1.5
21:13 Veselin Topalov resigned against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. France-Bulgaria: 2.5-1.5.
21:05 One can only imagine how tired the players are by now. Play chess if you want to be smart and slim!
20:58 Ukraine defeats Israel in a critical match-up: 2.5-1.5
20:48 Ponomariov has steel nerves. First he was lost against Rodshtein. Then the position became equal, and the GM from Israel offered a draw. Ruslan calmly outplayed him, 0-1!
20:44 Hou Yifan beats Kateryna Lahno and saves the day for China: 2-2
20:42 Germany-Iran: 4-0!
20:35 Guess who has just logged on to follow the broadcast?
20:24 Surprised to hear that India has boards with them, not only laptop. I actually appreciate it, but it's a rare approach nowadays...
20:18 India won an important match vs. Armenia (2.5-1.5) and is now giving a press conference:
20:09 Ukraine-Israel is a thriller. Did Rodshtein blow away his win?
19:57 Russia-Mongolia: 3-0 so far. Kosintseva T. is still playing Munguntuul.
19:53 Robson and Onischuk won. Kamsky has a complicated position, but seems to be better too.
19:46 Natalia Pogonina had just 1 minute left. She still found a nice bishop sacrifice and played d2!
19:35 Russia will probably beat Latvia 2.5-1.5.
19:30 A draw between Ju Wenjun and Natalia Zhukova. Mariya Muzychuk defeated Zhao Xue. The other two games are still going on, but so far Ukraine seems to be heading for a 2.5-1.5 score!
19:26 Nadezhda Kosintseva has two extra exchanges for a pawn:
19:22 My prediction is 3.5-0.5 in Russia-Mongolia (women).
19:19 Ivanchuk-Gelfand: draw.
19:13 Bulgaria vs. France. You can see ex-FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov thinking hard:
19:10 Finally found the broadcast of the women's games at another website. Kosteniuk won! Pogonina has a serious advantage. The Kosintseva sisters has an edge too.
19:04 England vs. Cuba: looks like a tie so far.
18:57 I can see that Ilya Levitov, Head of the Russian Chess Federation and FIDE Vice-President, has written an open letter to Ali Nihat Yazici regarding Evgeny Surov, Chief Editor of Chess-News.ru
18:55 Azerbiajan-Faroe Islands looks like 3-1 to me atm.
18:48 Surprisingly, Ukraine seems to have very bad positions on two boards against Israel.
18:46 USA-Venezuela: so far expecting 3-1 in USA's favor.
18:40 Ukraine - China: I'd say that White has +/= in all the games. Very tense match.
18:35 So far Russia doesn't have any real advantage against Latvia.
18:28 Sorry. It looks like the orgnanizers aren't the only ones who are having technical problems.
Bator Sambuev used to be a Russian GM. Now he is a Canadian star:
18:05 Both Kosintseva sisters are playing today. A rare case of two sisters being top-10 players in the world:
18:00 One more glance at the Russian positions:
17:44 The G-spot: Germany vs. Georgia:
17:33 Hou Yifan is applying the Chinese proprietary ointment. Natalia has tried it a few years ago; told me that it has a serious impact on the thinking processes, enhances one's consciousness. She decided not to experiment with it anymore:
17:30 GM Sergey Shipov is discussing outfits and uniforms. Both I and Natalia have the official uniforms of Team Russia. I don't wear sports clothes in daily life, but this is an exception.
17:24 I guess the relay of the women's boards is broken again. The clocks are inadequate.
17:13 Ukraine - China:
17:07 This year there is also a Fantasy Olympiad contest. I don't know the full results, but the organizers have informed us today that Sergey Karjakin, Alexandra Kosteniuk and Natalia Pogonina are the top picks for their boards.
17:03 While the top grandmasters are lazily recalling their analyzes, Angola won two games against Burundi.
16:58 Is Alexandra Kosteniuk's home preparation really that deep? The clocks say that she has blitzed out 19 moves without thinking.
16:52 The higest-rated player at the Olympiad, Levon Aronian, is dating Arianne Caoili from Australia. Did he also borrow her t-shirt?
16:50 It is not hard to guess which city is Gata Kamsky's favorite one:
16:40 Spain vs. Armenia:
16:33 The Russian boards:
16:24 Vassily Ivanchuk is pondering his move blindfoldedly:
16:18 Kramnik vs. Shirov, classical chess: +15 -11 =27. Ivanchuk vs. Gelfand, classical chess: +11 -8 =37 (data: ChessGames.com)
16:03 Party time!
15:40 Giant chess:
15:22 Famous Italian football coach Fabio Capello (currently coaching the Russian team) visited the Chess Olympiad:
14:38 Also, let's not forget about another epic battle between two World Championship Candidates - Vassily Ivanchuk and Boris Gelfand.
12:21 The central game in the women's tournament is, obviously, Hou Yifan (2599), CHN vs. Kateryna Lahno (2542), UKR. The reigning Women's World Chess Champion from China faces two-times Women's European Champion. Both girls are strong GMs and used to be chess prodigies.
11:35 The first board of the Mongolian women's team is Munguntuul Bathuyag (2434), a very strong player who is almost on par with the member of the Russian team. On the remaining three boards Russia has a serious edge in chess mastery.
11:30 Alexei Shirov is an icon of modern chess. For over two decades he has been part of the world's chess elite and one of the most popular grandmasters. This year he has transferred from the Spanish Federation to his native Latvian. Alexei not only plays in tournaments, but also records DVDs, participates in exhibition events, actively communicates with chess amateurs on message boards. Recently he has also become a tournament organizer. Shirov's most popular book is called "Fire on board". That's how Alexei usually plays - brilliantly, effectively, with a spark. What else can you expect from a student of Mikhail Tal?
In 1998 Alexei managed to beat Vladimir Kramnik 5.5-3.5 for the right to challenge Garry Kasparov for the World Chess Champion title. However, the sponsors didn't have enough interest in such a duel, so Kasparov, who had a nearly absolute power at that time, decided to play Vladimir instead. I guess you all know how it ended for him...Of course, Alexei was shocked by this turn of events. Also, while Kramnik received a nice paycheck for having lost the match, Shirov didn't get anything, because he was expected to earn a lot after the match against Kasparov. Naturally, this has spoiled the relationships between the two leading grandmasters. Today Kramnik will be playing Shirov again. In my opinion, this is the game of the day. On the other boards Russia has a serious advantage over Latvia.
9:50 Video from Day 2:
9:15 The Swiss pairings are often somewhat ridiculous. 33 teams in the Open section and 26 teams in the women's event have 4 match points out of 4. However, the rating favorites can be classified into three groups. The first one got lucky. For example, Azerbaijan (#7) will face Faroe Islands (#74) and USA (#5) - Venezuela (#58). The second group also got lucky, but to a lesser extent. Russia (#1) is playing Latvia (#30). Please note that in round 2 Russia defeated Greece (#21) 3-1, and now they have an even weaker (at least formally) opponent. Meanwhile, some very tough clashes will also happen. France (#8) - Bulgaria (#10), England (#11) - Cuba (#15), Ukraine (#2) - Israel (#12). These matches will strongly affect the medal distribution.
The most important match-ups in the women's tournament: China (#1) - Ukraine (#4), Georgia (#3) - Germany (39), Poland (#7) - Hungary (#12). Russia (#2) is playing Mongolia (#21).
