CHESS #645

The Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad in underway with 143 participating nations. One talking point is the chances of the Armenians “threepeating”. The defending champions are sixth-seeded but Messrs Aronyan, Akopian, Sargissian, Pashikian and Grigoryan compensate with their team spirit.

Hosts Russia have five open teams and three women’s teams. Russia1 (Kramnik Grischuk, Svidler, Karjakin, Malakhov) is top seeded while Russia2 (Nepomniachtchi, Alekseev, Vitiugov, Tomashevsky, Timofeev) is no:4, behind Ukraine and PRC.

India (Sasikiran, Harikrishna, Ganguly, Gopal, Adhiban,) is seeded 19th. On its day, this outfit is capable of beating anyone. However, medal efforts would be beyond expectation unless several of them run into top form and there’s luck to boot.

It’s not absolutely out of the question though the chances could have been enhanced if Anand, Sandipan Chanda and Parimarjan Negi had been available. The Olympiad format of 11 four-game matches with Swiss pairing does allow for favourable pairings and big wins in the last two-three rounds to transform “no-hoper” situations.

Russia Women’s 1 tops the seeding on the distaff side (Nadezhda Kosintseva, Kosteniuk, Galliamova and Gunina) but the second-seeded PRC (Hou Yifan, Ju Wenjun, Zhao Xue, Huang Qian, Wang Yu) will surely be reckoned co-favourites. India (Harika, Sachdev, Karavade, Meenakshi, Nisha Mohta ) is seeded eighth despite the absence of Koneru Humpy.

Of course, the other big talking point will be the Fide elections. Anatoly Karpov is, to put it mildly, a credible presidential candidate with a decent team, a well-organised campaign and lots of backers. But the incumbent Kirsan Ilyumzhinov can hardly be written off in a one-nation/one vote situation. The elections show every sign of getting dirty with lawsuits already flying around, and a likelihood of money or favours being disbursed to win votes.

There have been a few upsets in the first two rounds. Bulgaria lost to Croatia while England lost to Bosnia. The Azeris lost to Vietnam, which could be a dark horse with its band of talented junior players. Both Indian teams have done okay so far. There’s been a lot of interesting games.

The diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (Aronyan Vs Zhao Zong Yuan, Armenia Vs Australia, Rd2 2010 Olympiad) is the backdrop for a brutal attack. In retrospect, black’s queen is stuck out of the action and there’s a traffic jam on f8,e7. However, white’s direct tactics are almost crudely effective.

White played 21.Rh1! Bf8 If 21...hxg5? 22.hxg5, white has threats of Qh5 or Qg4-Qh4 and lines like 22...g6 23.Qf3 (threatening Rh8+ followed by Qxf7, Rh1+) 23...f5 24.g4 look good for white.

After 22.e5 f5 23.Qh5! Re7 , white crashes through with 24.Qg6 hxg5 25.hxg5 c5 26.Nb5! And now 26...Qc6+ 27.f3 cxd4 28.Qh7+ (1-0). Obviously 28.-- Kf7 29. Nd6+ is untenable.