The 9th round of the 44th Chess Olympiad ended yesterday in the evening, and the round saw a few interesting matches.
India plays an impressive round
India 2 drew their match against 6th seeded Azerbaijan with two draws and one victory on each side. This match saw the first result of the entire tournament where Indian GM Gukesh D. did not win the game. Playing against world number 7 Azerbaijan GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Gukesh drew the match on board 1. Gukesh still remains unbeaten in the tournament, but his brilliant winning streak has come to an end. India 1 won 3-1 against Brazil. The Brazilian team under the guidance of Chess Gaja founder GrandMaster Priyadharshan put up a fighting match against the 2nd seeded India. The result, however, was unsurprising as there is a huge rating difference between the two teams. India 2 is ranked 2nd after Uzbekistan, while India 1 is ranked 4th.
US pulls off a narrow victory
The American Team won their match against Greece with a margin of 2.5-1.5 in Round 9. The US team’s narrow victory got them a match win, but the meagre difference might hurt them during tie-breaks. The US team, after this narrow victory¸ is ranked 9th on the points table.
Poland displaces India to claim the top spot in Women’s Category
Poland defeated India 2.5-1.5 in Round 9 of the tournament to claim the 1st rank, displacing their opponents from there. India, however, is still ranked 2nd immediately after Poland. Georgia and Ukraine drew their match 2-2, thus placing the two teams 4th and 5th respectively on the points table.
The results of Round 9 brought about a few surprises, with the biggest highlight being that Gukesh finally drew a game. It is interesting to note how it took a torrent of chess legends like Alexei Shirov and Fabiano Caruana to wear out Gukesh. At last, it took someone of the caliber of Shakhriyar Mamedyarov to draw a game against the little prodigy, and still he could not be beaten. Simply phenomenal. Stay tuned on Chess Gaja for further updates about the 44th Chess Olympiad.
