| Ours remains to fight for silver The 36th World Chess Olympiad in Spain is finishing. Before the final two rounds, the Ukrainian men's team is 3.5 points ahead of the Russian and Armenian teams with 34.5 points. Having lost to the Georgian team, ours apparently did not use their last chance to catch up with the Ukrainian team, which won against Poland in the 12th round 2.5:1.5. Alexander Grischuk failed. Playing black with Boadur Jobava, he went for a sharp variation of the Slavic defense. After he carelessly opened the h-file, White attacked the h7 pawn with superior forces, behind which Alexander's king was hiding. The Russian was forced to stop resisting already on the 26th move.
The leaders of our team unsuccessfully tried to neutralize the defeat of their colleague. As always, Alexander Morozevich played energetically, who, playing black, sacrificed a pawn to Zurab Azmaiparashvili and seized the initiative. Azmai, as chess players call him, defended himself carefully and took the game to the endgame with an extra pawn and even got a chance to win. But justice prevailed - it was a draw.
Unfortunately, Peter Svidler did not gain anything with White in the Caro-Kann Defense against Zviad Izoria and considered it best to force a draw in the endgame with opposite-colored bishops. The closest to the goal was Vadim Zvyagintsev, who had a real chance of winning against Merab Gaprindashvili. Having found himself in a difficult position with Black, Merab gave up a pawn, relying on the presence of opposite-colored bishops. After Vadim missed the opportunity to exchange his trump card - the e6 pawn for the a5 pawn, Black simplified the position, and then caught the opponent in a funny repetition of moves. As a result, the defeat in the match was 1.5:2.5, and our team was overtaken by the Armenian team, which played a draw with the US team. In the current situation, in two rounds the gap between the Ukrainians and the Russians - 3.5 points - is so large that it can only be eliminated theoretically, and it remains to make a considerable effort to compete at least for the “silver”. But before that, our men’s team won twelve Olympics in a row (under the Russian flag in six). The main matches of the 13th round are Ukraine - Georgia, Russia - Cuba, Armenia - France.
Another local sensation took place in the women's tournament. In the 12th round, the Georgian team defeated the Chinese team 2:1. But this does not call into question the championship ambitions of the Chinese, who are three points ahead of their closest pursuers - the teams of Georgia and the USA. Our team is still half a point behind the leader. Oleg STETSKO |
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