Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine are sharing the lead at the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk. After six rounds these teams are on 11 match points. In the women section Russia 1 is the only team left with a hundred percent score.

General info

The 39th Chess Olympiad takes place September 20th – October 3rd at the Tennis Sport Development Center in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. 148 teams (735 players) in the Open section and 114 teams (559 players) in the Women section participate in the biannual event.

Each team consists four players and one reserve. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves and then 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from move one.

Results round 6 | Open section | top 20 boards

Results round 6 | Women section | top 10 boards

Complete results and standings can be found here

Round 6 report

After the first of two rest days (the second will be before the last round) chess resumed at the Tennis Complex in Khanty-Mansiysk. It was a good day for two main favourites: Russia 1 and Ukraine, who beat the Czech Republic and Hungary respectively. These two countries met in the women section, and Russia proved the strongest.

The top boards in the men section were occupied by Georgia and Armenia, who both got one match point. Levan Pantsulaia kept the initiative right from the opening against Gabriel Sargissian, won a pawn and then in a bishop ending won his fifth (!) game. By then Arman Pashikian had already beaten Tamaz Gelashvili, who had to give too many pawns while avoiding that his queen got trapped.

Ukraine's medal chances usually depend on what form Vassily Ivanchuk is in, and so we must conclude that this federation is still among the big favourites after six rounds. Chuky maintained his hundred percent score with a fine victory over Peter Leko.

Ivanchuk-Leko
Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010

The end is not difficult: 37. Bxe5+! Kf7 38. Qf3+ Kg8 39. Qc6 1-0

Russia 2's board one Ian Nepomniachtchi was too strong for Loek van Wely (The Netherlands) and with another win for Artyom Timofeev against Daniel Stellwagen, the match ended in 3-1. Sergey Karjakin's victory versus Zbynek Hracek was important for Russia 1's victory against the Czech Republic. David Navara held Vladimir Kramnik to a draw in an original game.

Kramnik-Navara
Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. f3 Nc6 4. d5 Ne5 5. e4 d6 6. Nc3 c6 7. f4 Ned7 8. Be3 e5 9. dxe6 fxe6 10. Nh3 e5 11. f5 Qa5 12. fxg6 hxg6 13. a3 Qc7 14. b4 a5 15. Ng5 axb4 16. axb4 Rxa1 17. Qxa1

17... d5!? 18. Ne6 Qd6 19. exd5 cxd5 20. cxd5 Qxb4 21. Bd3 e4 22. Bb5 Bd6 23. Bd4 Ke7 24. Ke2

How to describe? Ultra-modern, or Steinitzian king development? 24... Rxh2 25. Rb1 Qa3 26. Qxa3 Bxa3 27. Bxd7 Bxd7 28. Bxf6+ Kxf6 29. Rxb7 Rxg2+ 30. Kf1 Rc2 31. Nxe4+ Ke5 32. Rxd7 1/2-1/2

Azerbaijan is recovering from an early loss, and took down India 3-1. Mamedyarov started calmly with 1.Nf3 and 2.g3, but soon went in attacking mode anyway.

Mamedyarov-Sasikiran
Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010

Sasikiran had probably counted on 33.Nf6+ but Mamedyarov plays something stronger: 33. gxh6! gxh5 34. Rg2 Nc6 35. Qg5 f5 36. Qg6+ 1-0

Hikaru Nakamura, whom you might want to follow on Twitter, played an important role for his team. Without Kamsky the USA beat Vietnam thanks to Nakamura's win versus Le Quang Liem - a game that should have ended in a draw like the other three.

Le-Nakamura
Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010

Here 42. Rexc2 Rxc2+ 43. Rxc2 Nxg3 (43... Rxg3+ 44. Kh2 g6 45. Nc6) 44. Kf3 Kxe7 45. Rg2 Rd6 is an instant draw, but the Vietnamese top GM played 42. Re3? when after 42... Rd6! it was suddenly difficult for White. The engine suggests 43. Rf3 Rc4 44. Nxc2 Rd2+ 45. Rf2 Rd3 46. Re1 (46. Rf3 Rxf3 47. Kxf3 Rc3+) 46... Rxg3+ 47. Kf1 Nf6 48. Re6 Rxh4 49. Ne3 Rh1+ 50. Ke2. The game continued 43. Nf3 Rd1 44. Re1 Rxc1 45. Rxc1 Nf6 46. Nd4 Nd5 47. Nf5 Rc3 and Black won.

The world's highest rated player Magnus Carlsen suffered his second loss in Siberia, with Black against Mickey Adams. The Norwegian played a highly irregular opening.

Adams-Carlsen
Khanty-Mansiysk OL 2010
1. e4 g6 2. d4 Nf6 3. e5 Nh5

Chessbase nicely sums it up: "Only games of grandmasters on record, of which there are four, were played by notorious opening mavericks: Morozevich, Miles, Hodgson, and Hillarp Persson."
4. Be2 d6 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. exd6 6. O-O Bg7 7. exd6 Qxd6 8. Na3 O-O 9. c3 Nf6 10. Nc4 Qd8 11. Nfe5 Nxe5 12. Nxe5 Be6 Taylor,M-Hillarp Persson,T/Cobo Bay 2005 6... exd6 7. d5 Ne7 8. c4 Bg7 9. Nc3 O-O 10. O-O Bg4 11. Re1 Re8 12. h3 Bxf3 13. Bxf3 Nf6 14. Bf4

White has a space advantage and won the bishop pair, but Black's position seems playable. 14... Nd7 15. Rc1 Ne5 16. b3 a6 17. g3 Nf5 17... Nxf3+ 18. Qxf3 Nf5 looks close to equal, but Carlsen has more aggressive intentions. 18. Bg2 g5 19. Bxe5 Bxe5 20. Ne4 Ng7 21. Qd2 h6

That's it: Black is ready for ...f5. 22. f4!? gxf4 23. gxf4 Bf6 24. Kh2 Nh5 24... Nf5!? 25. Rg1 Kh7 26. Rcf1 26. c5!? 26... Rg8 27. Qe2 Ng7 28. Qd3 Kh8 29. Bf3

After some strong manoeuvring Adams now has a clear advantage. 29... b5 29... Bh4 30. Rg2 f5 31. Rfg1 Qe7 32. Nc3 is also tough for Black. 30. Bd1! Setting up a battery on the b1-h7 diagonal. 30... bxc4 31. bxc4 Bh4 32. Bc2 f5 The only way to prevent mate, but the weakening of the g6 square will tell.

33. Rg6! Kh7 34. Rfg1! Qe7 34... fxe4 35. Qxe4+-. 35. Ng3?! 35. c5! was killing here. 35... Bxg3+ 35... Raf8! was more tenacious, but it's hard to believe Black will hold it. 36. Qxg3 Qf7 36... Nh5 37. Qf3! Rxg6 38. Bxf5 Rag8 39. Qxh5+-. 37. Bd1! Rae8

There was no way to prevent... 38. Rxh6+! and Black resigned because of 38... Kxh6 39. Qg5+ Kh7 40. Qh4+ Nh5 41. Bxh5+-

In the women section the first team from Russia won an important match against Ukraine 2.5-1.5, and so they're the only left with a hundred per cent score. Tatiana Kosintseva lost to Kateryna Lahno, and sister Nadezhda drew with Natalia Zhukova. Alexandra Kosteniuk and Alisa Galliamova decided matters with victories against Anna Ushenina and Mariya Muzychuk.

Individual top scorers

Both Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine) and Levan Pantsulaia (Georgia) won all the five games they played. The young Swedish GM Nils Grandelius is doing well with 5.5/6, and GM Farrukh Amonatov (Tajikistan), Roy Jean-Noel Phillips (Mauritius) GM Bassem Amin (Egypt), IM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon (Canada), IM Sergio E Barrientos (Colombia), GM Zahar Efimenko (Ukraine), GM Anish Giri (Netherlands), GM Arman Pashikian (Armenia), GM Mladen Palac (Croatia, GM Gadir Guseinov (Azerbaijan), Algis Shukuraliev (Kyrgyzstan) and Munkhbat Chogdov (Korea) are on 5/6. In the women section Elina Danielian (Armenia) and IM Salome Melia (Georgia) all scored 5.5/6.

Photos courtesy of FIDE, more at the official site

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• Official website
• All details at Chess-Results
• Games in PGN: Open | Women via TWIC (Mark Crowther put a huge amount of work into generating a programme for processing the games and he now seems to have more games and in better shape than the official site.)
• Chessbase, the biggest portal for chess news
• TWIC, more news and by far the best source for games
• Chessdom, with news & live games
• Europe-Eches with news in French and videos in English & French
• Susan Polgar blogging
• Shaun Press blogging
• GM David Smerdon blogging
• GM Jon Ludvig Hammer blogging
• The Chess Drum
• Alexandra Kosteniuk blogging
• Jan Gustafsson blogging
• Chess in Translation with OIympiad articles
• Simon Williams' blog
• Kevin Spraggett's blog
• Magnus Carlsen blogging

We'll continue adding links during the Olympiad. If you're missing one, don't hesitate to mention it in the comments!