Town Hall, DC
Nov 22 2008
First-place teams defeated in chess round 9
By ROBERT HUNTINGTON
The mighty were brought low as the first-place teams in both the open
and women’s divisions fell in round nine on Saturday. In the open
division, Israel played the role of David, knocking off Armenia
2.5-1.5. On the women’s side, Serbia edged China 2.5-1.5.
The U.S. women’s medal hopes suffered a severe setback as Poland beat
them 3-1. The U.S. men, already virtually eliminated from contention
by Russia in round eight, crushed India 3.5-1.5.
There were a number of other upsets in the open section.
Ukraine downed top-seed Russia 2.5-1.5; 22nd-seed Serbia beat
fourth-seed Azerbaijan by the same score. Sixteenth-seed Vietnam held
fifth-seed Hungary to a 2-all tie; and Slovenia beat Norway 3-1.
England kept its medal hopes alive by beating Vietnam 3-1 on wins from
Michael Adams and Nigel Short on the top two boards.
Veteran Boris Gelfand led the way for the Israelis on board one
defeating the world’s seventh rated player Levon Aronian with Black,
exploiting his opponent’s weakened king position to win a pawn and
then winning the ensuing rook-and-pawn endgame. Israel’s other win
came from Maxim Rodshtein on board four over Tigan L. Petrosian.
The American men put on a strong performance that was probably too
little, too late. Gata Kamsky beat Krishnan Sasikiran on board one
when Sasikiran apparently missed an interpolation on move 34 and had
to resign just two moves later. On board two, Hikaru Nakamura won a
powerful game out of an unorthodox opening against Penteala
Harikrishna.
The American’s other win came on board four where Varuzhan Akobian won
a tactical melee against Geetha Narayanan Gopal.
Today’s results put Israel in first place with eight points. Armenia
and Ukraine are tied for second with 7.5 points. China, England, and
Serbia each have seven points.
Ten teams, including the United States and Russia, have 6.5 points.
On the women’s side, Poland, Serbia, and Ukraine have leapfrogged
China into a first place tie with 7.5 points. Armenia, China, and
Georgia have seven points each. Hungary, Russia, the United States,
and Uzbekistan have 6.5 points each.
Round 10 of the 11-round event takes place here on Sunday.
In other news, the president of the world chess organization FIDE,
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who was injured in an automobile accident just
before the event started, has arrived in Dresden for the FIDE Congress
after being released from a Moscow hospital.