46th Olympiad: Both American Teams Start Strong

Both American teams currently boast 6/6 scores after three rounds of the 11-round 46^th FIDE Chess Olympiad. Of the 205 teams competing in the Open, just 21 remain unblemished.

From left: Captain John Donaldson, Levon Aronian, Hans Niemann, Wesley So, and Awonder Liang. (Photo courtesy US Chess)

In the women’s event, 20 out of the 186 teams in the women’s event have still yet to concede a match point. Moreover, with 11 wins and only one draw out of 12 games, the Women’s team boasts the best tiebreaks in the field so far.

Members of both American teams enter the playing hall before Round 1. (Photo courtesy US Chess)

Today’s report covers the first two rounds, featuring detailed analysis from WGM Sabina Foisor, and Sunday’s report will focus on Rounds 3 and 4 (with analysis by FM Andy Lee).

Round 4 begins Saturday morning at 5 a.m. CDT, so don’t stay out too late tonight!

Open: USA Defeats Iraq, Survives Mongolia

Team USA got off to a strong start with a 3½–½ win against Iraq on Wednesday. CM Ali Ehsan Aryan (2163) became the latest non-GM to join in on the tradition of pushing GM Levon Aronian to his limits in Round 1, holding Aronian to a draw.

Wesley So led the way on Board 1 during Wednesday's opening round. (Photos courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza and FIDE/Rafal Oleksiewicz)

With GM Fabiano Caruana sitting out, GM Wesley So won a clean game on the top board as Olympiad newcomers GMs Hans Niemann and Awonder Liang each notched their first career Olympiad victories in convincing fashion:

Hans Niemann and Awonder Liang both won their Olympiad debuts on Wednesday. (Photos courtesy FIDE/Rafal Oleksiewicz (L) and FIDE/Michal Walusza)

Levon Aronian had a full day of work Wednesday, but that didn't stop him from meeting with fans after the game. (Photos courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza)

In Round 2, USA faced a dangerously underrated Mongolian team that offered considerable resistance. The Americans won 2½–1½ in a match with three decisive results. With So sitting out, Niemann was unable to create any chances against IM Munkhdalai Amilal.

supervisor Mohamed Al-Mudahka c Rafal Oleksiewicz

Qatar Chess Association President Mohamed Al-Mudahka makes Caruana's first move in Round 2. (Photo courtesy FIDE/Rafal Oleksiewicz)

But in his first game for this year's team, Caruana delivered a fine victory to put his team out in front:

In these early rounds, a common strategy is to be willing to settle for draws on the top boards and rely on the lower boards to outclass their opponents. This puts more pressure on players like Liang to fight for a win as Black, which explains his risky opening choice. Mongolia’s Board 4, IM Khuyagtsogt Itgelt, was up to the challenge and, after just one inaccuracy, brought Mongolia back into the match.

On Board 3, Aronian looked to be en route to the fastest win of the match after his opponent blundered a piece early. But from there, IM Ganzorig Amartuvshin did everything in his power to make Aronian’s life difficult!

With Aronian showing excellent composure to finally convert his extra piece, USA clinched the match 2½–1½ to reach a 4/4 tournament score.

The top 28 teams reached a 4/4 score after Thursday, with Georgia’s 2–2 tie against Kyrgzystan making them the highest-seeded team to concede a match point. But, as we’ve already seen, that’s not to say that the matches have all been lopsided. In fact, we’ve already seen a number of individual upsets.

Photo courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza.

In Round 1, India started their title defense with a 3–1 over Indonesia that saw GM Arjuan Erigaisi lose on Board 1 to Thailand’s IM Prin Laohawirapap in a 396-point upset!

Everybody wants to play their best against the defending champion, and again India faced stiff opposition in Round 2, this time from Indonesia. With the other three boards ending peacefully, IM Arif Abdul Hafiz had serious chances to tie the match against GM Nihal Sarin on Board 2:

The super-strong Chinese team also got battle tested Thursday against Chile, with GM Rodrigo Vasquez Schroeder holding the former World Champion to a draw on Board 1.

Finally, it wouldn’t be a WGM Sabina Foisor production without at least one instructive endgame. This one is courtesy of Dutch GM Anish Giri:

Women: Eight Wins in Two Days

The women’s team is off to a dream start with consecutive 4–0 victories over Andorra and Belgium, respectively.

From left: Tatev Abrahamyan, Rose Atwell, and coach Melikset Khachiyan join Hans Niemann and John Donaldson before the opening ceremony. (Photo courtesy US Chess)

On Wednesday, IM Rose Atwell won her Olympiad debut as Black in fine style. Her opponent chose a drawish line against Atwell’s French Defense, but Atwell’s experience and composure helped her carve out an advantageous without taking any extraneous risks.

Chess.com's Mike Klein interviews Rose Atwell before her first Olympiad game. (Photo courtesy US Chess)

On Board 3, IM Tatev Abrahamyan won the longest game of the Andorra match after her opponent, Ariadna De la Riva Real, displayed remarkable resilience deep into a very instructive and tricky minor piece endgame.

Tatev Abrahamyan had to grind a complex minor piece endgame in Round 1, and after 95 moves she secured USA's first of two 4–0 match victories. (Photo courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza)

On Thursday, Abrahamyan took a well-deserved breather and IM Carissa Yip — in her debut as USA’s Board 1 — joined the festivities with a nice attacking win. On Board 2, IM Alice Lee followed suit, generating a swift and ferocious attack after just one inaccuracy from her opponent.

In Round 2, second-seeded Georgia conceded a 2–2 tie to Montenegro despite outrating their opponents by over 300 points on each of the bottom three boards. Wins by WFM Alena Skvortsa and WIM Aleksandra Milovic on the two middle boards cemented the biggest upset of this year’s Olympiad so far:

Georgia entered this year’s competition as a popular pick to stop the top-seeded Indian team from repeating its 2024 gold medal performance, and, in an 11-round tournament, one tie is obviously not the end of the world. But an early setback can impact a team’s tiebreaks and also create more must-win situations later in the event.

Speaking of India, the defending champions conceded only one draw over the course of the first two rounds (courtesy of Finland’s WIM Anastasia Keinanen against GM Vaishali Rameshbabu).

A skill of winning these early matches is being able to take what the position gives you. Take IM Vantika Agrawal, who has played as Board 3 in both of India’s matches so far. On Wednesday, she was unable to secure much of an advantage against her opponent from the Dominican Republic. So, she settled for creating an imbalanced position where it was easy to go wrong by playing principled-seeming moves:

The next day, her Finnish opponent didn’t make any obvious mistakes in the opening, but slightly slow play in a sharp Sicilian gave Vantika a chance to take over the game and she didn’t blink:

Everybody wants to win games the way Vantika won her second game. But being able to retain composure and create chances like she did in her first game is what separates good players from gold medalists.