The Week in Chess

The final two rounds of the FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup Preliminary section left the question of who was going to join China in the Superfinal in question until the very end.

Europe and the USA met in Round 9 and if the USA had won they would have qualified for the final, as it was they lost. Hikaru Nakamura has been undefeated so far but he was one move from defeat against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (32...h3 was the cleanest) and probably benefited from Europe only needing a draw from this game, Fabiano Caruana had a large advantage against Levon Aronian but he encountered very strong resistance and could only draw. Wesley So was initially better but then had to hang on for a draw. Nana Dzagnidze was much better for almost the entire game against Irina Krush and won the only decisive game of the match, Krush missed one chance 33...Rh3+ to be equal. This 2.5-1.5 result meant that Europe had to beat the Rest of the World in the final round to reach the Superfinal. The USA would have to better Europe's result to get there.

The Chinese put out close to their strongest side against the USA in the final round but suffered their first defeat. Ding Liren was the first player to defeat Nakamura but things went less well for China on the other boards. Wang Hao didn't seem fully concentrated allowing Caruana two chances to play the crushing Bxh7+, on move 15 Caruana missed his chance but he was soon a lot better again and after finally playing Bxh7+ on move 22 he soon won. Yu Yangyi had scored 6.5/8 undefeated before this round he also tasted defeat when he lost to Wesley So - this was the game that won USA the match. Irina Krush bounced back from defeat in round 9 to have the better of a draw against women's champion Ju Wenjun.

Europe had a final place in their own hands, but they needed to defeat the Rest of the World and they could only draw. MVL had the slightly worse side of the draw against Teimour Radjabov, Alireza Firouzja scored 2/2 today and was thanked by Wesley So after they qualified, he scored a fabulous win against Levon Aronian, Jan-Krzysztof did beat Bassem Amin and Dinara Saduakassova drew with Nana Dzagnidze on the women's board.

The final is over four boards on Sunday. China have draw odds because they won this preliminary stage and they will also have white on boards 1 and 3.

Final scores: China 17 match points, USA 13pts and 22 board points, Europe 13pts and 21.5 board points, Russia 8pts, India 5pts and Rest of the World 4pts.