World Chess Olympiad/ World Team Chess

[Sin Hombre]

India 2 beat Cuba 3.5-0.5 and then beat top seeds USA 3-1 to go to 2nd spot after round 8.

2 more wins for Gukesh who is now India #2!

India 1 beat India 3 3-1 but then lost to Armenia 1.5-2.5 , and are now in 7th spot.

Next round will see Armenia play Uzbekistan (we probably want a draw here) and India 2 play Azeris.

[Sin Hombre]

So Uzbekistan beat Armenia and India 2 drew with the Azeris, which means Uzbeks in the lead with 16 points and India 2 is 2nd with 15 points and better tiebreaks than Armenia.

India 1 beat lowly Brazil and move to 14 points.

Tomorrow is round 10, penultimate round.

India 2 plays Uzbekistan. Uzbek win almost guarantees them the gold, and even a draw puts them as clear favourites for gold. India 2 needs to win if they want to win gold, a draw keeps them as a medal favourite.

India 1 will play Iran, which won't be easy and will need a win to get back into clear medal contention.

[Sin Hombre]

Today was a heartbreaking disaster.

When I woke up, both Gukesh and Pragg were winning and the other two games looked like a draw. This would have meant a 3-1 win and India-2 in a clear first position and likely needing a draw in the final round to win.

45-mins later Gukesh had blundered and his game was an equal draw but Pragg had converted and the other two games were drawn. I was thinking 2.5-1.5 and things still looking ok.

Then Gukesh blundered in time pressure and India-2 ended 2-2 with Uzbekistan.

India-1 won their match 2.5-1.5

What this means is Uzbekistan leading Armenia and both tied with 17 points, and both India teams at 16.

India-2 needs Uzbekistan to draw and win handily against Germany and Armenia to draw/lose as well.

[sameerph]

Looks like 2 bronze medals for us in both open and women section, somewhat disappointing I guess in open section-

Chess Olympiad 2022 round 11 Highlights: India wins two bronze medals; Uzbekistan wins open gold, Ukraine Women take top honours

We must have got some individual board medals too but not mentioned here.

[Orang]

Gukesh and Sarin both got gold as best performers on Board 1 and 2 respectively. Not sure if that has ever happened before.

We got 7 individual medals of all colors:

https://olympics.com/en/news/fide-chess ... eam-bronze

Of most significance, we got the Gaprindashvili Cup:

https://www.chess.com/news/view/2022-fi ... d-round-11

The Indian first team won the Gaprindashvili Cup by means of finishing fourth in the open and third in the women's, thus with a total rank Sum of seven. U.S. (5+4= rank sum 9) and India 2 (3+8= rank sum 11) finished second and third, respectively.

[usaindia]

Chess Olympiad: When it rained medals for India, like never before
https://sportstar.thehindu.com/chess/ch ... 751333.ece

[Sin Hombre]

Gaprindashvili Cup doesn't matter.

India 2 won their final tie 3-1 but both Armenia and Uzbekistan won 2.5-1.5 so India-2 finished 3rd.

Gukesh's heartbreaking loss in R10 proved decisive and the difference between gold and bronze.

The women choked really badly though, they led until R8 and then again after R10 and were also the top seeds. Humpy played extremely badly throughout the tournament, Harika who is 7 months pregnant also underperformed and Vaishali and Tania were keeping them afloat. Bronze in the women's section was a disaster.

Gukesh and Nihal still won golds on boards 1 and 2 which has never happened for us before; and Arjun and Pragg won silver and bronze on board 3 so at least the top-4 juniors all did extremely well.