Gukesh, Arjun, Vidit Lead Indian Men To 16/16; Polish Women Defeat India

After defeating Iran 3.5-0.5, India continue to lead the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad with a perfect 16/16 points. Of 32 games played, India hasn't lost a single one. GM Benjamin Gledura won a close match for Hungary 2.5-1.5 against Armenia after defeating GM Robert Hovhannisyan on board four, while Serbia nearly held Uzbekistan to a draw until GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, after fumbling a winning position earlier, won an equal rook endgame against GM Alexandr Predke to tip the balance. 

Just as in 2022, Poland is the first team to defeat India in the Women's 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad, with IM Alina Kashlinskaya and WIM Alicja Sliwicka the heroes in a match that could have gone either way. Poland has caught India, with Kazakhstan also in a three-way tie for first after winning an equally crazy match against France by the same 2.5-1.5 scoreline.

Round nine of the 2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad starts on Friday, September 20, at 9 a.m. ET/15:00 CEST/6:30 p.m. IST.

• Open Section: India Continues Winning, Uzbekistan Sets Up Dramatic Pairing For Next Round
• Women's Section: Deja Vu As Poland Halt India Again

Open: India Continues Winning, Uzbekistan Sets Up Dramatic Pairing For Next Round

India continues to lead the event with a perfect 16/16 score, but two points behind Hungary and Uzbekistan are breathing down their necks. After winning a nail-biting match against Serbia, defending champions Uzbekistan will have their shot at stopping India in round nine.

See full results here.

The Indian team could hardly have won more emphatically. Though GM Parham Maghsoodloo had chances to save the game against GM Gukesh Dommaraju, it wouldn't have helped as GM Arjun Erigaisi and GM Vidit Gujrathi won on the bottom boards as well.

Arjun was the first to score for the Indian team, on board three against GM Bardiya Daneshvar. These days, it's hard to find Arjun's name in a sentence without the word "win" near it, and he bulldozed his way through yet another grandmaster's position. After 20.Be3?, Arjun made the attack look easy, as if it played itself, shoving the f-pawn forward.

That's a seventh win out of eight games for Arjun and he's up to a live rating of 2792. Well, is he thinking about becoming the 15th player to cross 2800? Not really, he says.

Mike Klein: "Have you thought at all about getting to 2800?"

Arjun Erigaisi: "No, not at all... my focus is only on the tournament."#ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/cZWBgVsAKg

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 19, 2024

On board one, Maghsoodloo was already worse out of the opening (QGD Tarrasch) with the white pieces after an opening mishap. Playing an improper move order (15.Nxb6 was better), the first serious mistake 18.Rxe3? allowed the rejoinder he must have missed, the only move for a black advantage. 

It looks like Parham is in trouble on board one, with the white pieces vs. Gukesh!https://t.co/LHX5c653Fo#ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/HTDJaINSzE

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 19, 2024

Curiously, the only game to reach the same path in this opening line was played by GM Vladimir Kramnik on Chess.com, and the former world champion (and Uzbekistan's team captain) handled the white side better in that game. Maghsoodloo had just crawled back into the game, with three pawns for a piece, when suddenly the blunder 29.Nc4?? abruptly put an end to the game and match.

Just before that game ended, GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu dispelled a briefly uncomfortable heavy-piece endgame to secure the draw on board two against GM Amin Tabatabaei, so they had already clinched the match with three games. Vidit won a no less compelling attack in the Sicilian Najdorf, Fischer-Sozin Variation against GM Pouya Idani on board four.

It's another resounding victory for team India who now lead by two points, meaning that even if they lose a match they'll still at least have a share of the lead.

Uzbekistan, who are in shared second with Hungary, had a roaring start against Serbia. They enjoyed better-to-winning positions on boards one and two early on, but Serbia fought back and nearly saved both of those games. It was board one, our Game of the Day, that decided that match.

With draws on the bottom two boards, Uzbekistan's victory looked like a foregone conclusion—that is, until, first GM Alexey Sarana pulled the first "Houdini" and escaped into an opposite-color bishop endgame. On board one, Abdusattorov also got an advantageous position out of the opening, but his game would be equally full of surprises.

In one of the funkiest opening lines, Predke maneuvered his h1-rook to h3, b3, and then e3 before developing any other pieces. Abdusattorov developed an advantage on the board and an overwhelming one on the clock.

Predke has under 10 minutes against over an hour, and what's worse is that he has almost no pieces developed! It will be a seventh win out of eight rounds if Abdusattrov takes this one.https://t.co/BWQ2kOneyf#ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/NGxLh15X9g

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 19, 2024

But just as Sarana saved it on board two, Predke somehow reached an equal rook endgame, nearing the greatest save of the entire day. Just as Gukesh did in the previous round against GM Wei Yi, the Uzbek number-one continued to pose problems even with reduced material and managed to squeeze water from stone. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day below.

It's an incredible race for individual gold, with the two youngsters Gukesh and Abdusattorov leading it for board one, ahead of GM Magnus Carlsen, who defeated GM Liem Le this round (though Norway drew Vietnam 2-2). 

It's Turkish GM Ediz Gurel who leads the race for individual gold on board two, Arjun on board three, to no one's surprise, and GM Levon Aronian on board four. 

Aronian had a shaky start to the tournament but has since righted the ship, no longer blundering knights and rooks (and still winning). After convincingly winning an early game against GM Maxime Lagarde (the U.S. ultimately defeated France 2.5-1.5), he told FM Mike Klein that surviving awful situations can, counter-intuitively, give a great boost to morale.

"Sometimes when you're playing bad and you're surviving, in a way this is like much better than playing well the whole time," says @LevAronian about his earlier, shaky rounds! He won a convincing game today.#ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/0acSwrSHb2

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 19, 2024

Besides Uzbekistan, Hungary is the only other team on 14 points after defeating Armenia 2.5-1.5. It was another close one as the top three boards ended in draws, but Gledura grabbed a pawn early in the game and disarmed the counterplay to take the match.

It's a tough loss for the historically strong Armenian team that scored 19 points in the previous Olympiad, just like Uzbekistan, but finished second by tiebreaks. This year, they are left four points behind the leaders before round nine.

It ought to be mentioned that China sat out World Champion Ding Liren for a second round since his loss in round six. China nevertheless defeated Romania with just one win scored by GM Yu Yangyi against GM Kirill Shevchenko in a rook endgame.

The Indian and Uzbek teams will be thinking about their last encounter in 2022 ahead of the next round. In the previous Olympiad, Gukesh had won his first eight games and was on course to go 9.5/10 when—who else but—Abdusattorov turned the tables, winning the game, drawing the match, and later leading the Uzbek team to gold. Will India exact their revenge this year, or will Uzbekistan play spoiler?

Despite losing to Ukraine earlier, the number-one seed U.S. is back near the top of the scoreboard and will face Hungary on home soil. China and Iran, both injured from losses in the last two rounds, will have at it in the third match.

2024 Chess Olympiad Round 9 Team Pairings: Open (Top 15)

Women's Section: Deja Vu As Poland Halt India Again

Poland won two games, lost one, and clinched the match with a draw to defeat India 2.5-1.5 in a nerve-racking round eight. The exact same scenario saw Kazakhstan beat France, while wins for the United States, Armenia, and Ukraine put them right back in contention for the top spot.

That dramatic day's action left a three-way tie for first place between India, Poland, and Kazakhstan, while United States, Armenia, and Ukraine are just a point behind.

In the 2022 Olympiad in Chennai, India, the home Women's team had a perfect 14/14 start, just as in Budapest. They then drew in round eight against Ukraine, but retained the sole lead, before being caught in the lead by Poland, who inflicted a first defeat in round nine. The Indian stars went on to take bronze.

This time the defeat has come a round earlier, but once again it's Poland, this time seeded third, who dealt the blow.

Another echo of the last Olympiad was that a loss was suffered by GM Vaishali Rameshbabu, who in 2022 lost the only decisive game of the match, to WIM (now IM) Oliwia Kiolbasa. Poland rested Kiolbasa for round eight, but the vastly experienced GM Monika Socko achieved the same result, when a mistake in a drawish rook endgame suddenly saw Black with an unstoppable passed pawn.

Monica Socko reaches move 40 with a winning position vs. Vaishali! https://t.co/YxoQcYWrDm #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/dJ3iKElqUl

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 19, 2024

The king is deflected away from the pawn, and d2 and Rc1 soon forced resignation, with the c5-rook hopelessly out of play.

It was a slow-burning round, with absolutely nothing clear when that game ended after the first time control. India were better on two of the remaining three boards, and 18-year-old IM Divya Deshmukh moved to 7/8 when she survived early pressure before snatching a free pawn and confidently beating IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya. 

The biggest unknown was the game of Kashlinskaya, who as in the previous round combined powerful play to gain a big advantage with somewhat shaky conversion. At times it seemed GM Harika Dronavalli would escape, but in the end Kashlinskaya converted an extra pawn to pick up a point that meant Poland would at least draw the match.

Alina Kashlinskaya wins and now if Alicja Sliwicka can hold a drawn endgame Poland will beat India — just as they did in the 2022 Olympiad — and we'll have a tie at the top! https://t.co/AUACnbpOQi #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/TwlGB9Ly4M

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 19, 2024

In fact they won the match, after the biggest swing took place on the final board. IM Vantika Agrawal was on the brink of a fifth win in row, but suddenly she blundered her trump card, the passed a-pawn, and Sliwicka held a draw.

Alicja Sliwicka holds a draw and Poland beat India — we now have a 3-way tie with Poland, India & Kazakhstan leading the Women's #ChessOlympiad with 3 rounds to go! https://t.co/goYzReMAGv pic.twitter.com/czszvomT9W

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 19, 2024

That dramatic result gave a chance for France or Kazakhstan to join Poland and India in the lead, and a crazy encounter followed.

The teams exchanged wins on the first two boards which while not exactly smooth, were mainly one-way traffic. On board three, however, IM Pauline Guichard looked sure to give France a hugely important win.

Guichard was a pawn up with great posts for her pieces, but after 17-year-old WIM Alua Nurman played 35.e4, with both players having just a minute on the clock, all hell broke loose. First Guichard let her whole advantage slip, and then trying to avoid a draw she fell to defeat. Chess is tough!

It still looked as though we might get a draw with four wins for White, but another teenager, WIM Amina Kairbekova, proved to be the hero, by holding a draw from a lost position to clinch match victory. As in 2022, Kazakhstan had used Poland's victory to join them in the shared lead.

The tournament is anyone's to win now, with three rounds to go, with another three teams just one point off the lead after winning in round eight. Ukraine narrowly defeated Hungary with a single win, while the United States and Armenia crushed Uzbekistan and Mongolia, respectively.

Don't rule out the teams two points behind the leaders either—those include China, who after two match defeats in a row have now won two matches 4-0.

In news further down the standings, the winning streak of 16-year-old Abigail Karyah from Liberia ended at 7/7 when she suffered a loss.

17-year-old Eman Sawan moved to 7/7 herself, with her performance calculated at 2631—far above second-placed Kashlinskaya's 2568 in the race for individual gold on board one. If Sawan wins in the next round she'll have played the eight games required to be eligible for the medal. She could likely ensure it by not playing the remaining games, just as Carlsen skipped the last round of last year's European Team Championship to clinch gold, but there's an issue—her team has only four players, so no rest days are possible!

She told FM Mike Klein that she's living in Jordan because it's not safe to return to Palestine. 

Eman talked to @ChessMike after her 7th win in a row! https://t.co/WOjMSVoy9g pic.twitter.com/Kjb7EwBeg5

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 19, 2024

With just three rounds to go, the Women's Olympiad is as close as many predicted before it began. In round nine we see Poland take on Kazakhstan, while India face the United States—the other team that beat them in 2022. 

2024 Chess Olympiad Round 9 Team Pairings: Women (Top 15)

Colin McGourty contributed reporting to this article.

The 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad is a massive team event for national federations that takes place every two years. In 2024 it's being held in Budapest, Hungary, with 11 rounds that run September 11-22. In Open and Women's sections, teams of five players compete in a Swiss Open, with each match played over four boards. There are two match points for a win and one for a draw, with board points taken into account only if teams are tied. Players have 90 minutes per game, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move.

Previous Coverage:

• Round 7: Gukesh Grinds Out Endgame Masterpiece, Both Indian Teams On Perfect 14/14
• Round 6: Indian Teams Sole Leaders After Ding Defeat Costs China
• Round 5: Arjun Hits 5/5 As India Powers On; Armenian Women Topple China
• Round 4: Ivanchuk Beats So As Ukraine Topples Olympiad Top-Seed United States
• Round 3: Carlsen Bikes To Win As Giri, Keymer Suffer Shock Defeats
• Round 2: Caruana Back In 2800 Club; Canada Hold Carlsen-less Norway To Draw
• Round 1: Aronian, Mamedyarov, Arjun Live Dangerously As Top Teams Win
• 2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad: 7 Talking Points
• U.S. Top Seeds, India Close 2nd As Chess Olympiad Teams Announced