Chess Olympiad Round 8: Germany beat Uzbekistan as Scotland and Ireland win big

Germany beat Uzbekistan 2½–1½ in Round 8 of the Chess Olympiad. The hosts had won their first seven matches. Now Germany have joined them on 14 match points, with eight more teams just one point behind and three rounds still to play.

The decisive points came from brothers Frederik and Rasmus Svane. Javokhir Sindarov beat Matthias Bluebaum for Uzbekistan, while Vincent Keymer and Nodirbek Abdusattorov drew. Germany had already beaten Uzbekistan 3 in Round 2 and Uzbekistan 2 in Round 3. They have now beaten all three Uzbek Open teams entered in Samarkand.

It was a mixed day for the Home Nations. Scotland and Ireland each won 3½–½ in the Open. England and Wales lost narrow Open matches. England Women and Scotland Women drew, while Wales Women and Ireland Women lost 3½–½.

England Open: one endgame decides it

England lost 2½–1½ to Uzbekistan 2. Michael Adams, Gawain Jones and Luke McShane drew. Daniel Fernandez’s defeat to Khumoyun Begmuratov was the only decisive game.

Game of the Match: Begmuratov–Fernandez. This was a long, demanding endgame, and it was less straightforward than the final score suggests. Around move 58 the position began to swing. Fernandez’s 58...e4, Begmuratov’s 59.Bb5 and 60...Nb4 all left difficult decisions on the board.

Fernandez kept defending, but 62...Kd4 gave Begmuratov the lasting initiative. Begmuratov converted it and secured the match for Uzbekistan 2. Calling this a routine endgame loss would miss how much work both players had to do to reach that point.

Adams drew Jakhongir Vakhidov after an early queen exchange. Jones handled a sharp Benko Gambit against Abdimalik Abdisalimov and also drew. McShane pressed Mukhammadzokhid Suyarov, but could not keep his later chances.

England are 36th on 10 match points, down from their 11th-place starting rank. With three rounds left, a medal looks highly unlikely.

England Women: Bodhana’s unbeaten run ends

England Women drew 2–2 with Peru. Lan Yao won, Harriet Hunt and Elmira Mirzoeva drew, and Bodhana Sivanandan suffered her first defeat of the event.

Game of the Match: Deysi Cori–Bodhana Sivanandan. Sivanandan entered Round 8 with five wins and two draws. She held Cori through much of a long Slav Exchange game, but 47...Kc6 let White build a winning endgame.

Cori kept playing until 79.Qb6#, finishing with checkmate on the board. It ended an excellent unbeaten run. Sivanandan is now on six points from eight games.

Yao’s win against María Teresa Jiménez Salas was not a simple one-way conversion. Chances changed hands in their complicated Najdorf before 40...Re5 gave Yao the decisive opportunity. Hunt’s Sicilian against Fiorella Contreras Huamán also swung before the draw. Mirzoeva recovered from a difficult position to share the point with Aleyla Hilario.

England Women are 19th on 11 match points, one place above their starting rank.

Scotland Open: three wins against Syria

Scotland beat Syria 3½–½. Frederick Waldhausen Gordon, Konstantinos Megalios and Murad Abdulla won; Andrew Greet drew.

Game of the Match: Murad Abdulla–Bashir Eiti. Abdulla’s win was built patiently. He gained space against Eiti’s Scandinavian Defence, then made each defensive decision harder. The pressure increased after 27...Bxb5, 30...Bd8 and 34...Bg5.

What stands out is that Abdulla kept control as the advantage grew. He did not need one spectacular move to settle the game. A passed pawn eventually promoted, completing a strong individual performance.

Waldhausen Gordon’s game was less tidy, with chances for both sides before he found the finish. Megalios overcame some counterplay to win his board. Greet’s draw supplied Syria’s only half-point.

Scotland are 60th on 10 match points, level with their starting rank.

Scotland Women: Arakhamia-Grant supplies the win

Scotland Women drew 2–2 with Algeria. Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant won, Alice Lampard lost, and Suzie Cooke and Eve Clark drew.

Game of the Match: Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant–Hayat Toubal. This was a strong win, though not a flawless one. Arakhamia-Grant’s 12.a3 and 23.Qd4 both gave Toubal opportunities to make the defence more difficult.

Toubal could not maintain that resistance. After 25...Rxa3, Arakhamia-Grant established a firm initiative and drove her pieces forward to win. It was Scotland’s only full point, so it mattered directly to the match result.

Cooke’s game remained balanced. Clark had a chance after 29.Nb7 but missed the stronger continuation and drew. Lampard’s 32.Re5 allowed Lina Nassr to take control on the board Algeria won.

Scotland Women are 74th on nine match points.

Wales Open: Cave wins, New Zealand take the match

Wales lost 2½–1½ to New Zealand. Iwan Cave won, Ifan Rathbone-Jones drew, and José Camacho Collados and Jonathan Blackburn lost.

Game of the Match: Iwan Cave–Daqi Mao. Cave, rated 2107, beat his 2277-rated opponent for a 170-point rating upset. He built his position steadily against a French Tarrasch. Mao’s 18...Bxh3 gave White the first clear opening, and 22...g6 made the defence harder.

Cave kept control through the exchanges and converted. It was a clean individual result on a day when Wales could not quite get enough from the other boards.

Camacho Collados came under sustained pressure against Felix Xie. Blackburn’s 28.Nb5 helped Tom Middelburg establish an advantage. Rathbone-Jones and Daniel Hanwen Gong both had chances in their draw, but neither held the initiative.

Wales are 94th on eight match points, six places above their starting rank.

Wales Women: Camp earns the only half-point

Wales Women lost 3½–½ to Morocco. Imogen Camp drew on board one; Morocco won the other three games.

Game of the Match: Sarah El Barbry–Imogen Camp. Camp’s 13...Bd7 offered an early tactical chance, but El Barbry did not take the sharper continuation with 14.Bxc7. The game then settled into a closely contested endgame.

The study flags the final recorded move, 36.g3, as an error. No reply appears in the supplied PGN, and the official result is a draw. It would therefore be wrong to describe an unplayed winning continuation as something that happened on the board. Camp supplied Wales’s only half-point.

Emma Kong, Susanna Fraser and Syringa Camp all lost. Syringa Camp’s rook ending contained missed resources for both players before Wissal Echcharbiny converted.

Wales Women are 115th on seven match points.

Ireland Open: Baburin breaks through in the ending

Ireland beat Burundi 3½–½. Alexander Baburin, Adam Collins and Kavin Venkatesan won. Tom O’Gorman drew.

Game of the Match: Wilfried Ntamatungiro–Alexander Baburin. Baburin’s Alekhine Defence reached a difficult rook and pawn ending. Earlier, 31...Nxe5 had given Ntamatungiro an opportunity. That chance passed, and 37.Kf2 changed the balance in Black’s favour.

This is the sort of ending that can look holdable until one decision changes the demands of the position. Baburin made progress, won further queenside material after 40.Re7 and advanced a passed pawn. Ntamatungiro resigned after 42...Ra4.

Collins had to navigate several changes in the position before securing his point. Venkatesan took advantage of early inaccuracies and won more directly. O’Gorman and Ezra Paul Chambers both had chances in a long draw.

Ireland are 85th on eight match points. The win moved them up sharply from 116th after Round 7, though they remain below their 66th-place starting rank.

Ireland Women: Israel win three boards

Ireland Women lost 3½–½ to Israel. Trisha Kanyamarala drew; Alice O’Gorman, Lara Putar and Antonina Gora lost. Ireland had no decisive win in this match.

Game of the Match: Trisha Kanyamarala–Marsel Efroimski. Both players missed chances in a Queen’s Gambit Declined. Kanyamarala’s 21.Bxc6 gave Black an opening, but 22...Qe6 returned the initiative. Neither player kept a lasting advantage in the ending, and repeated bishop moves brought the draw.

On the other boards, Noga Orian broke through against O’Gorman. Putar came under pressure in a King’s Indian structure and Masha Klinova won. Gora had chances against Olga Gutmakher, but 20...dxe4 left her defending a difficult position.

Ireland Women are 58th on 10 match points, close to their 56th-place starting rank.

Home Nations after Round 8

The wider Olympiad

Uzbekistan and Germany lead the Open on 14 match points. China, the Netherlands, Azerbaijan, the United States, India, France, Armenia and Uzbekistan 2 are all on 13. Hungary, in 20th place, has 12. So the gap from first to 20th really is two match points, although official tiebreaks still separate those teams considerably.

India drew 2–2 with Azerbaijan, as did the Netherlands with Armenia. The United States beat Serbia 3½–½, China beat Poland 2½–1½, France beat Iran 2½–1½, and the Czech Republic drew 2–2 with Hungary. Germany’s result mattered most, but several of those matches helped keep the chasing pack close.

In the Women’s section, China lead alone on 15 match points. Kazakhstan, Armenia and Mongolia have 14. India and Uzbekistan are among the teams on 13.

Open Top 10 after Round 8

Full Open standings

Women’s Top 10 after Round 8

Full Women’s standings

Upsets of the Olympiad: Round 8

An upset here means a decisive, completed game in which a player with a published numeric rating beat a higher-rated opponent. Draws, forfeits and games involving an unrated player are excluded.

The Open produced 48 qualifying upsets. The Women’s section produced 55. These were the ten largest rating gaps in each section:

Every Open Round 8 game · All Open upsets · Every Women’s Round 8 game · All Women’s upsets

Round 9: what comes next

The official team pairings put Uzbekistan against the United States and India against Germany at the top of the Open. France face China, Azerbaijan face Armenia, and Uzbekistan 2 face the Netherlands. In the Women’s section, China face Armenia, while Mongolia play Kazakhstan.

These are team pairings, not confirmed individual board line-ups.

My take

Germany beating Uzbekistan changes how I look at the final three rounds. Uzbekistan are still one of the main contenders. I would not write them off because of one narrow defeat. Saying that, ten teams are now within a point of the Open lead. That gives the next round a very different feel.

For the Home Nations, Scotland and Ireland got the Open results they needed. Abdulla’s win was the performance I enjoyed most from Scotland: patient, controlled and stronger with each phase of the game. Baburin’s rook ending was a reminder of how quickly a position can change when the choices look deceptively ordinary.

Cave’s win deserves attention too. Wales lost the match, but beating a player rated 170 points higher with that level of control is a result worth keeping. Bodhana’s first loss should be seen in context: six points from eight games is still an excellent individual return.

England Open are in a difficult position now. There is no point dressing up 36th from an 11th-place seed. They have three rounds to improve it. Across all eight teams, though, Round 8 gave us more than a set of match scores. There were games worth sitting down and watching.

And in the Open, there are now rather a lot of teams with a reason to look upwards.

Sources

• Official Open Round 8 results and standings
• Official Women’s Round 8 results and standings
• Official Open Round 9 team pairings and Women’s pairings
• The eight linked Lichess Study chapters and Chess.com’s Round 8 report