40th Chess Olympiad - Daily Report: Round 4

In the 4th round of the Istanbul Chess Olympiad USA played against India on the top table. According to the Indian players, the Philadelphia Open winner and reigning national champion Abhijeet Gupta is very dangerous with white pieces, but Varuzhan Akobian neutralised opponent's minimal advantage and repeated the moves to make a first draw. Krishnan Sasikiran was under strong pressure from Hikaru Nakamura and just as the Indian was collecting some counterplay he carelessly run into the mating net. Pentala Harikrishna immediately equalised as he converted the advantage in the game against Gata Kamsky. Alex Onischuk dropped a pawn against the reigning Asian champion Parimarjan Negi, but the active position allowed him to trade the pieces down to the opposite-coloured Bishops endgame. The match ended in a 2-2 tie. Before the time trouble, the US captain Donaldson didn't feel much of the tension as he often sat on his chair and read a small book.

The 2nd table saw the long-awaited clash between Russia and China. Bu Xiangzhi easily neutralised Sergey Karjakin by using the Petroff defence. On the 2nd board Wang Yue and Alexander Grischuk were playing an approximately equal position, but then the Chinese made a horrible mistake allowing Grischuk to set the Knight's fork on the King and the Queen. After black's 25...Rh2+ Wang started shaking his head in disbelief. He resigned when it became obvious that the Queen is lost. Li Chao B likes to attack his opponents, often giving a way more material than the position can handle. But this time it was the European champion Dmitry Jakovenko who sacrificed an exchange against Chao. Poor coordination of the white pieces allowed Jakovenko to duly convert the advantage into the full point. Wang Hao was inferior to Vladimir Kramnik but the former World Champion couldn't break the fortress set by the black Rook and Bishop. A draw for the final score of 3-1 in favour of Russia.

Teimour Radjabov defeated Arkadij Naiditsch to avenge the painful loss in the last European Team Championship in Greece and give an early lead to Azerbaijan in the match against Germany. But Azeri were on the defending side in the last two games so a draw by Safarli and a loss by Guseinov settled the final score to 2-2.

France and England also shared the points with draws on all four boards and Ukraine walked past Poland with 3-1. Armenia defeated Philippines thanks to Gabriel Sargissian and Canada outplayed Mongolia thanks to the young lions Eric Hansen and Nikolay Noritsyn.

In the Women's section, one of the medal-favourites, the team of Georgia, steamrolled Cuba with 4-0. China returned to the winning paths with two full points with white pieces for the final score 3-1 in the match against Germany.

The same victory was achieved by the Russian team who defeated Czech Republic on the lower boards. France allowed only one draw to Argentina, while the neighboring Slovakia and Poland exchanged a pair of wins to finally tie the match 2-2.

On the top table India can be considered lucky to have shared the points with Serbia as Natasa Bojkovic couldn't convert the extra pawn in the endgame against Harika Dronavalli.

USA tied another match, this time against Slovenia. Anna Zatonskih held Anna Muzychuk, the top rated player of the whole section, and the rested Irina Krush won on the second board. However, WGM Jana Krivec struck back against IM Rusudan Goletiani. The game Tatev Abrahamyan - Ana Srebrnic was drawn.

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