After beating Azerbaijan 2.5-1.5, Russia is the sole leader after seven rounds at the Olympiad in Istanbul. China, who beat Armenia with the same score, is in second place together with Ukraine. In the women's section Russia and Poland played 2-2 and are sharing the lead with China, who won against Georgia.

The first move made in the Azerbaijan-Russia match | All photos by David Llada, Arman Karakhayan and Anastasiya Karlovich courtesy of FIDE & the official website

After yesterday's intro some readers might be interested in what happened with the author. Well, the organizers indeed fixed me a new hotel, where I arrived with all my luggage on Tuesday night. There, the first thing I was told was: "I'm sorry sir, but we have a problem. You have to share a room with someone." Amazing coincidence, sloppy organizing or somewhere in between? In any case, eventually I was brought to a third hotel where I slept like a baby.

Round 7

The presence of Garry Kasparov, who was in the playing hall for the second day in a row, might be an inspiration for the Russian supergrandmasters. We're not sure if this goes for Vladimir Kramnik, but the long chat between Kasparov and Dmitry Jakovenko must have been inspiring! After seven rounds the team that so desperately tries to win their first gold in ten years, finds itself in sole first place. In their match with Azerbaijan three games ended in a draw which gave Alexander Grischuk the opportunity to make up for his loss the day before:

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Alexander Grischuk, man of the match for Russia

Armenia lost to expensive match points in their match with China. Also here three games were drawn but Sergey Movsesian, who beat Alexander Grischuk the day before, lost to Wang Yue:

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Wang Yue (r.) decided the match in China's favour

Ukraine climbed towards medal positions again by beating Spain 2.5-1.5. Also in this match there were three draws and one win:

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Hungary gave Judit Polgar a rest day and played 2-2 against the Philippines. Wesley So's list is really becoming impressive as he also drew with Peter Leko. Zoltan Almasi beat Oliver Barbosa but Eugenio Torre, who is playing a record 21st Olympiad, defeated Ferenc Berkes:

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21 Olympiads for Pinoy Eugenio Torre

The top matches in round 8, with board one pairings, are: Russia-Ukraine (Kramnik-Ivanchuk), China-Azerbaijan (Wang Hao-Radjabov), Armenia-Uzbekistan (Aronian-Kasimdzhanov), FYROM-USA (V.Georgiev-Nakamura), Germany-Hungary (Naiditsch-Leko) and England-Philippines (Adams-So).

In the women's section the Russian ladies drew their second match, this time with Poland, but if could have been worse. Valentina Gunina and Nadezhda Kosintseva drew with Monika Socko and Iweta Rajlich respectively, and Alexandra Kosteniuk lost to Jolanta Zawadzka. Reigning Russian champion Natalija Pogonina avoided a big disappointment by pressing so long in a drawish ending that Karina Szczepkowska eventually cracked:

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This result on the top boards allowed China to catch the two countries in first place. They won 2.5-1.5 against Georgia and this was one of the games:

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China beats Georgia to reach shared first

The Women's top matches in round 8 are Poland-China (Socko-Hou Yifan), Russia-Ukraine (T.Kosintseva-Lahno) and France-Spain (Skripchenko-Matnadze).

Olympiad 2012 | Round 7 standings (top 30)

Women's Olympiad 2012 | Round 7 standings (top 20)