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Uzbekistan, the host nation, are the favourites to win the 208-team biennial chess Olympiad in Samarkand, which has its opening ceremony on Tuesday, and its first round (of 11) on Wednesday.
The defending champions, India, China and the US are Uzbekistan’s most dangerous rivals. India would have been the open Olympiad favourites but for the shaky form of the world champion, 20-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, who was the top board gold medallist in Budapest two years ago but is likely to play lower down the order in Samarkand. USA are led by the world No 3 Fabiano Caruana and the world No 5 Wesley So, but their lower boards, including the variable Hans Niemann, look more vulnerable.
England, with an ageing squad, may struggle to reach the top 15, although they are seeded 12th. The oldest England player, nine-time British champion Michael Adams, is 54. Luke McShane is 42, Nikita Vitiugov and Gawain Jones are in their late 30s, while Daniel Fernandez, making his England debut, is 31. It is likely that the selectors would have chosen 17-year-old Shreyas Royal had they known that he would win the British championship, but that event was in August while Fide’s nomination deadline was in mid-July.
Vitiugov, England’s current No 1 grandmaster, who switched federations in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has spoken out in an interview with the Russian website sports.ru. An account in English can be found on the World Chess site. In the interview and in a forthcoming book, Vitiugov has given his thoughts on his own career and about his England colleagues before the Olympiad.
His main conclusion is that, at 39, he has no future in the professional game because his invitations to major tournaments have declined since his emigration, even though he is still ranked inside the top 50 grandmasters. “Below a 2700 rating, chess doesn’t pay,” he said.
He is also gloomy about England’s prospects in Samarkand, adding that he has no expectations for the Olympiad and believes that around 15 rival teams there have better chances. Asked whether England’s ageing lineup was a team of veterans, he replied with an even more brutal description: “A team of amateurs,” before going on to explain that he was contrasting England to countries which provide professional stipends for their top players.
The 190-team women’s Olympiad offers a better prospect for England to pull off a surprise and significantly improve on their seeding of 20th.
In 11-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan, the youngest ever British women’s champion, England has a rising star of the international game, and one who will be motivated to attempt more records as she seeks to add to her qualifying norms for the women’s grandmaster and open international master titles.
Lan Yao, 26, a four-time British champion, is also an improving player with ambitions for the IM title, while Harriet Hunt and Jovanka Houska have experience at the highest levels.
Meanwhile, the world No 1 Magnus Carlsen, who will be absent from Norway’s Olympiad team, and the world title challenger Javokhir Sindarov drew their first game in the Global Chess League at Bangaluru, India. The opening was a shock: 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 f6?! an original defence to the Rossolimo Sicilian which is not even mentioned in one popular database.
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It turns out that 3…f6 originally came about via a mouse slip by Carlsen’s long-time coach Peter Heine Nielsen, which they then investigated and found quite playable. Sindarov v Carlsen took a calm course where White’s knight pair balanced Black’s bishop duo, although the No 1 missed a fleeting opportunity to play 41…Rd3! with advantage.
Afterwards Carlsen praised his opponent: “Sindarov is very good. He has a very, very good positional understanding, and he put a lot of pressure on me earlier in the game. He’s very, very well rounded and doesn’t have any obvious weaknesses.”
Carlsen and Sindarov will renew their rivalry at 2pm on Friday afternoon.
4041 1 Nf6+! Kg7 (1…Kh8? 2 Qf8 mate) 2 h6+! Kxh6 3 Qf8+ Kg5 4 Rf5+! gxf5 5 Qg7 mate. Caruana chose 1 Qe7? when Black could have resisted longer by 1…Rc6.
