"So – if this was possible according to the rules, as it is in other team competitions – the best strategy might be to have Radjabov consistently play black, and Gashimov having white in all of his games?"

Yes, and at least with the KID Radjabov's score with black has been impressive. After the loss against Aronian in Linares 2006 I think he has +19 -5 =27 with it, and the stats only get better against the top players, it's +10 -1 =19 in 30 games against 2705+ opposition, if I got it right (+9 -4 =8 against players below 2705).

@Afghan: The total between Radjabov and Anand is +2 -2 =9, but in the almost seven years after March 2003 Radjabov has a plus. Against Topalov it's a plus after January 2003, and against Kramnik an even score after July 2003. Of the top players it's only Kasparov he wasn't beaten by when 15 or 16, so in that case he has a career plus thanks to Linares 2003. His last year has probably been his worst in a long time though, so it remains to be seen if those stats against top players will stay as impressive in the future.

What is really going on with Moro???
He is lost in an early stage in FIDE World Cup 2009, and now drew and lost
to an inferoir players.
I'm affraid that he dropped out of 2700 group because i'm a big fan.

Please ca anybody explain how can Guseinov play on board 2 when the board order is
1. Gashimov
2. Radjabov
3. Mamedyarov
etc.

Reserves always come on the bottom and others are moved up, but this was not the case with Azeris in round 2.

Actually Russia did something similar yesterday against Greece: Their board order is 1.Morozevich, 2.Grischuk, 3.Malakhov, 4.Jakovenko - but Jakovenko played on the first board.
Maybe it is actually allowed to shuffle players around freely (nothing is mentioned in the regulations)? Something I call "Dutch rules" because it is common in Dutch team competitions. I also played in Germany, where only adjacent boards can switch (i.e. board 1 can become board 2, e.g. for color preferences) and in France, where the maximum ELO difference between higher and lower boards is 100 points (i.e. a player with ELO 2200 can play above one with 2101, but has to be below one with 2099)

Oops, switch "below" and "above" in my last sentence ... .

"Please ca anybody explain how can Guseinov play on board 2 when the board order is
1. Gashimov
2. Radjabov
3. Mamedyarov"

"Actually Russia did something similar yesterday against Greece: Their board order is 1.Morozevich, 2.Grischuk, 3.Malakhov, 4.Jakovenko – but Jakovenko played on the first board.
Maybe it is actually allowed to shuffle players around freely "

The top four boards of the Azeris are 1. Gashimov 2. Radjabov 3. Guseinov 4. Mamedyarov, in Russia it's 1. Grischuk 2. Jakovenko 3. Morozevich 4. Tomashevsky.

@pb: Where did you find this information? I looked at the tournament homepage, I guess ebutaljib did the same.

"Where did you find this information?"

Yesterday's Chessvibes article has the board order of all the teams:

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/world-team-championship-has-started/

It's also on the official home page, on the player section.

Ah I see - but if you click on the flags next to "Player Lists" you get the board orders we (myself and ebutaljib) gave. As I now see, these lists have also "old" ELO ratings ....

I wonder if it is a good idea to place Radjabov on board 2 for the first time. Regardless of his form (and it has been really bad lately) he always plays well against top players, the last 6-7 years he has a plus against Kasparov, Anand and Topalov and all draws against Kramnik. But against lower rated players he has several losses against for example Macieja, van Wely, Sakaev, and so on.

Today he was clearly winning against Harikrishna already in the opening, had a trivial 20.exf6 to secure a quickly winning two pawns up endgame, but chose to use 20 minutes on the less brutal Qa3+. c5 was the only move that didn't lose immediately for black and that's what Harikrishna played just as immediately. On that unavoidable response Radjabov used another 20 minutes, leaving himself 25 seconds plus increments for 20 moves, and in the end he can be happy that he could save the draw...

None of the top players you mentioned participate in the tournament, and Radjabov's score against those present (Grischuk, Aronian, Gelfand) seems to be roughly even, nothing more and nothing less. Maybe they expected more from Gashimov and/or wanted to give him (finally!?) some practice against the elite - where he now belongs by rating.

But today it didn't work out: Gashimov and Guseinov lost, one Mamedyarov wasn't enough - 2.5-1.5 for India. This also means that Russia (3-1 against USA) is back in business - was the loss against Greece a timely warning?

Ok, then it is explaine, there are several version of board order on official site. I clicked on the team flags on the official site and the board order is what i said.

It would be really odd if they could shuffle freely. In that case we don't really need board numbering ;)

"None of the top players you mentioned participate in the tournament, and Radjabov’s score against those present (Grischuk, Aronian, Gelfand) seems to be roughly even, nothing more and nothing less"

Yes, even if in the five latest decisive games against Aronian and Gelfand he has 5-0, and in general he does much better the stronger the opposition. When Azerbaijan has scored their best results it has been thanks to Gashimov and Mamedyarov on the lower boards. Radjabov isn't the one to line up wins against 2600-50s, in such games Mamedyarov and Gashimov seem to be clearly better players, but against 2700-50s it has been the other way around.

The big problem for Azerbaijan is Guseinov on board 3. In the European Team Championship he scored -2 and now he is -1 here. Mamedov has played much better in the team events (+2 in ETC) but is only reserve. Against Russia Azmaiparashvili will surely field Gashimov-Radjabov-Mamedyarov-Mamedov

When you click on the flags or any link in the home page, it shows an "alleatory" order for the players in their teams, some by rating, some by success, etc. These links offer simply a "cosmetic" view of the participants. The official version of the board order is in the "players" section (as the chess-results layout in that page also indicates...)

It doesn't say anywhere that this is only a provisional list or something like that. It explicitly states who is on what board. Otherwise they could just list players without mentioning the boards and reserves.

For me it was completely logical to click on the nations flag if i wanted some informations about that specific nation.

@pb: Interesting (but not even surprising given his track record or reputation) that out of Radjabov's five recent wins against Aronian and Gelfand four were with the black pieces. Overall his winning percentage [data from the FIDE rating pages] is higher with black (23%) than white (20%) - of course he also loses more frequently with black, unavoidable when you play the KID. BTW, his white win against Aronian (Linares 2009) was in [sort of] a King's Indian Attack!

So - if this was possible according to the rules, as it is in other team competitions - the best strategy might be to have Radjabov consistently play black, and Gashimov having white in all of his games?

Agreed regarding Guseinov - actually why is he (2610) board 3, and Mamedov (2640) reserve player? Is this for historical reasons?

i didn,t know that rajabov has score agaist anand

i mean plus score

The previous rounds have had one game between players rated 2680 or higher but today things will be different. As expected Azerbaijan rests Guseinov and the result is three games between 2730+ players:

Gashimov-Grischuk
Jakovenko-Radjabov
Mamedyarov-Morozevich
(Fourth board Malakhov-Mamedov)

In the other matches there are no games between players rated above 2660.