The Hungarians’ best men’s team lost in a big fight in the ninth round of the Budapest Chess Olympiad, thus slipping off the podium, but the women’s team won on Friday’s game day.
In the open section, the host’s quartet, ranked ninth, sat at the table with the Americans, ranked first before the tournament, on every board the opponent had a higher Live Point, all players from overseas were above the 2700 mark.
Among the members of the Hungarian national team, Friday’s hero, Gledura Benjamin, who sat at the table during all nine rounds, clearly did not have to worry for a moment against Levon Aronian, the former world champion of rapid and blitz chess, the battle of equal forces ended with a draw in the 31st move. On the first three boards, however, the Hungarians were forced to defend in the middle game. From this, an open position emerged only on the third board, in which the Russian-born Sanan Sugirov made a big mistake in the 41st move, and from there Leinier Dominguez Perez was able to increase the pressure on the B column to victory with a pawn pushed to the seventh row, reports MTI.
At the beginning, the leader Rapport Richard was perhaps in the most difficult position, but leading the dark pieces he managed to organize his lines, so Fabiano Caruana, third in the world ranking, could not find a grip on the extremely closed position. A similarly impenetrable situation arose at the party of the other great returner, Péter Lékó, who played with light, so there was a draw against Wesley So. At the same time, Rapport – perhaps seeing Sjugirov’s defeat – broke the promising draw, trusting that he could save the duel to a draw. He was not successful, so his party was left with a draw, and in terms of the duel, the minimum defeat.
In the women’s category, the Hungarian team faced an easier opponent again after the defeat suffered by the champion Ukrainians the day before, the home team finally won 2.5-1.5 against Canada.
Hoang Thanh Trang, controlling the light pieces on the second board, made amends after his loss on Thursday with a quick victory, as he mercilessly took advantage of his opponent’s faulty running move, as a result of which he completely shattered the defense of the dark king. Zsóka Gaál, already at the top of the table at the age of 17, also deteriorated in the middle game, the result in this case too was the weakening of the defense of the dark king, so she started the end game with a clear disadvantage, and this could no longer be countered, so she gave up the hopeless fight in the 55th step. In light of this, the decision was left to the two back boards. In the fourth, Lázárné Vajda Szidónia won a double pawn advantage in the middle game, and from there she did not let the success slip away. Terbe Julianna played a flurry of matches with her Canadian opponent, and in the end she held her ground in the marathon, 111-step battle, i.e. with a draw, she secured the team victory of the Hungarians.
The Indians lost their flawless balance in the open category after reaching a 2-2 draw with four draws against the Uzbeks, so taking advantage of the points distribution, the Chinese team ranked third and the American team, which defeated the Hungarians, caught up to two points behind the leader, and at the same time overtook the defending champions, the Uzbeks. . In the women’s category, Kazakhstan emerged as the sole leaders as they defeated the Polish quartet, while India only drew with the American team.
In the men’s category, the 14-point Hungarian A national team awaits the continuation from fifth place in a tie. AB team has 12 points after defeating Finland, while the U25 team has 10 points after beating Madagascar. For the women, the A team now has 13 points, the B team has ten with the success against Kyrgyzstan, and the U25 quartet also got ten points with the draw with Chile.
The 45th Chess Olympiad will continue with the tenth round on Saturday from 3 p.m. The 11-round Swiss-style tournament ends on Sunday.
2024-09-20 19:27:28