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Home » Chess News » Events » 39th Chess Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk 2010 » Big wins for Russian teams, Carlsen loses in Norway Debacle

Kramnik against Nakamura was drawn but losses for Kamsky and Onischuk led to a big win for Russia. Photo © 2010 Albran.

In the history of Olympiads the clash between Russian and the USA has had many sensational matches. Here this is the first of several "Russia" clashes on the cards. Russia with wins from Alexander Grischuk against Gata Kamsky and Sergey Karjakin against Alexander Onischuk won 3-1. To my eye only some tremendous fiddling by Hikaru Nakamura against Vladimir Kramnik prevented the result being worse. Russia 1 moved 4th with this win and there are now just 7 teams on 4 wins from 4.

Leading the Olympiad is the Russian 2nd team headed on top board by the new "mini-Morozevich" as I like to think of him, Ian Nepomniachtchi. Against anything but the strongest players Nepomniachtchi can work wonders and confusion onto the chess board. Russia 2 won 3-1 against India and will meet Armenia in Round 5.

Judit Polgar won the match for Hungary by beating Bu Xiangzhi. Photo © 2010 Albran.

Hungary maintained their winning start with a narrow win over China. Three games were drawn and Judit Polgar had the decisive say by beating Bu Xiangzhi on Board 3.

Armenia put away Russia 3 (the local Ugra-Team) in when Levon Aronian beat Dmitry Jakovenko and the rest were drawn and work their way up one to Russia 2 in the next round. The Netherlands had an impressive win against Spain with Loek van Wely winning on top board against Alexei Shirov.

Baadur Jobava at the start of the game he won against Magnus Carlsen. Photo © 2010 Europe-Echecs.

Just as for the USA, hopes would have been high in the Norwegian camp for their team. However they had just a terrible day against Georgia. Magnus Carlsen was well beaten by Jobava Baadur on the way to a crushing 3.5-0.5 win for Georgia.

Ukraine won 2.5-1.5 against Slovenia by virtue of a win for Vassily Ivanchuk against Alexander Beliavsky. The rest were drawn.

Ivan Sokolov's rating has been dropping recently. He is a confidence player and he won again making it a 100% 4/4 start for him and a win for his team.

The English Team in Round 4. Photo © 2010 Albran.

England beat Turkey 3-1 with wins for Luke McShane and David Howell and draws for the big two Adams and Short. Scotland's fine run came to an end with a 3-1 loss to Kazakhstan.

The games section is complete up to Round 4 and can be downloaded from http://www.theweekinchess.com/assets/files/pgn/olymm10.pgn for the men's games and http://www.theweekinchess.com/assets/files/pgn/olymw10.pgn for the women. I will probably move to a zip file at some point soon.

Karpov and Kasparov together. Photo © 2010 Albran.

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