Four countries are sharing the lead after four rounds at the Olympiad in Istanbul: Armenia, Hungary, Russia and Ukraine. They all started with four victories, and of these federations Ukraine has the best first and second tie-break. In the women's section only Russia and France have eight match points.

Flags at the ceiling of the playing hall | All photos by David Llada, Arman Karakhayan and Anastasiya Karlovich courtesy of FIDE & the official website

At the top boards in the fourth round the match between USA and India was played, and it ended in 2-2. The Americans opened the score as Hikaru Nakamura played a fine attacking game against Krishnan Sasikiran:

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Pentala Harikrishna levelled the score against Gata Kamsky - a nice endgame squeeze:

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Russia is desperately trying to win its first gold since Bled 2002, and it has taken its first hurdle. On Friday the Chinese were beaten convincingly: 3-1. Vladimir Kramnik was held to a draw by Wang Hao and so was Sergey Karjakin by Bu Xiangzhi. However, Russia won both of its black games. Wang Yue didn't see Alexander Grischuk's tactic coming:

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Dmitry Jakovenko won his fourth game:

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Board one of Russia-China: Kramnik vs Wang Hao

Azerbaijan and Germany split the match points and scored one win each. Arkadij Naiditsch was doing fine after the opening against Teimour Radjabov but then the German made a big mistake:

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Teimour Radjabov vs Arkadij Naiditsch

Gadir Guseinov probably could have hold the opposite-coloured bishop ending against Daniel Fridman, but he failed:

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England and France also played 2-2. The way Romain Edouard forced a draw against Nigel Short was funny:

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Armenia beat the Philippines but only with 2.5-1.5. On bord one Wesley So drew with Levon Aronan, who praised his opponent afterwards.

Wesley So vs Levon Aronian

Board 4 was a crushing win for Gabriel Sargissian:

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Ukraine defeated Poland 3-1. On board one Vassily Ivanchuk ended the game with a combination:

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The two top matches in the fifth round will be Armenia-Ukraine (Aronian vs Ivanchuk!) and Hungary-Russia (Leko-Kramnik!). And there's good news for our Dutch fans because Anish Giri has finally made it to Istanbul and he will play top board for the Netherlands in their match against Monaco.

In the women's section Russia and France are the only two teams left with the maximum number of board points. Russia defeated Serbia 3-1 with two draws and two wins, while France beat Argentina 3.5-0.5. On the top boards India and Serbia tied 2-2 and the same result was seen in Slovakia-Poland. It was a good day for China and Georgia, who beat Germany (3-1) and Cuba (4-0!) respectively.

An interview with Hou Yifan

In the fifth round obviously Russia and France meet, and there's also e.g. Georgia-Ukraine and India-China.

Olympiad 2012 | Round 4 standings (top 30)

Women's Olympiad 2012 | Round 4 standings (top 20)