Bernard Garcia, right, scores a draw against a strong Hong Kong team at Board 3 to put Palau in the historic moment against Board 3 player who is 300 rating points higher than him. A draw occured in a bishop of opposite color endgame where there is no progress in the game.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
A shot with Philippine women's team with its Open team captain GM Jayson Gonzales, Roberto Hernandez alternate with Bernard Garcia 10 minutes before the start of the 4th round.
This time with Bernard. Lucky charm? Maybe, as Bernard scores a draw, Palau's first.
This time Roberto Hernandez poses with the Open team Board 1--Wesley So, 2-Oliver Barbosa, 3-Mark Paragua, 4--Oliver Dimakiling. All are GMs except Dimakiling. They faced 2-time Olympiad champ Armenia.
Bernard's turn. Oliver Dimakiling lost at Board 4, Wesley and Barbosa drew their game against Aronian (FIDE rating 2816) and ? respectively. Mark Paragua is ahead by a piece but no more pawns.
Menandro Manuel in serious thought even though the game hasn't started yet. Everybody in Palau's team is worried about his high blood pressure -- 190/90.
GM Nigel Short, 2nd from left, watches the game between his compatriot Michael Adams at Board 1 against tough French team.
Russia's Vladimir Kramnik vs. China's top GM.
WORLD CHESS OLYMPIAD
ROUND 4 REPORT
IN THE 4th round of the World Chess Olympiad the teams of USA and India were paired on the first table. Just before the time control India's leader Krishnan Sasikiran became entangled in the net of Hikaru Nakamura, but Pentala Harikrishna immediately struck back on the 2nd board by defeating Gata Kamsky.
In the other 2 games the Indians held the minimal positional advantage but this was not sufficient to achieve more than 2 draws and the match finished in a 2-2 tie.
In one of the derby matches of the whole Olympiad Russia and China played on the 2nd table. Bu Xiangzhi confortablbly held Sergey Karjakin with the Petroff defence but Wang Yue erred terribly and fell victim to a knight's fork.
Dmitry Jakovenko made a positional exchange sacrifice and gradually outplayed the ambitious Li Chao, bringing the decisive advantage in the match to Russia. In the longest game of the match Wang Hao held the inferior position against Kramnik. Final score 3-1 in favor of Russia.
Azerbaijan assumed a 1.5-0.5 lead against Germany before the time control, but the Germans were pressing hard with white in the remaining two games. Eltaj Safarli succeeded in securing the draw, but Gadir Guseinov went down in an opposite-coloured bishops endgame. The official commentator Evgeny Miroshnichenko believes that Guseinov could have held the draw with precise play.
France and England have split the points, while Armenia achieved a narrow victory against the Philippines. Levon Aronian praised his opponent Wesley So in an interview after the game.
Ukraine is catching up after a swift 3-1 victory against Poland. Vassily Ivanchuk wins his first game in the Olympiad, while Ruslan Ponomariov beat Mateusz Bartel to avenge the loss from the recent Dortmund super-tournament.
World Correspondence Chess Champion Tunch Hamarat joined the commentetors team to provide insights for the Turkish online audience.
In the 4th round of the Women's Section, the Georgian team swept accross the match like a hurricane against their Cuban opponents with a 4-0 score, while China fielded World Champion Yifan Hou for the second day in a row, to defeat Germany 3-1.
A French connection existed between the French ladies as they asserted their dominance over Argentina crushing them with a 3.5- 0.5 match score and the Russian's showed the strength and depth of their team by winning convincingly on boards 3 and 4 with the top boards drawing, taking home a 3-1 match win.
Poland and Slovakia could not make headway in their match trading wins on the top and bottom boards with no progress on the middle boards, ending 2-2. Much the same with the US and Slovenia except the top and bottom boards exchanged draws with the middle boards exchanging the wins.
In the last match of the evening, the Serbian team held the Indian team to a draw. On Board 1, IM Bojkovic held GM Dronavalli to a 108-move draw with over 70 moves being a dance between kings, queens and pawns.
Source: World Chess Olympiad
Bulletin 4
August 31, 2012
Istanbul, Turkey
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