FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup: USA Leapfrogs Europe
After eight rounds, China is already secured of a place in Sunday's Superfinal of the FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup. The USA leapfrogged Europe in the standings on Friday and these teams will battle for second place in tomorrow's final two regular rounds.
All games will be played on the Chess.com live server and can be followed on our events page and in our Android and iOS apps under "Watch." Commentary by GM Robert Hess, IM Daniel Rensch, and special guests can be enjoyed at Chess.com/TV where the games will be discussed and explained.
The Chess.com Day 4 Live Broadcast for replay.
Round 7
| Bo. | Fed | USA | Rtg | 2½:1½ | Fed | Russia | Rtg |
| 1.1 | Nakamura, Hikaru | 2829 | 1 - 0 | Nepomniachtchi, Ian | 2778 | ||
| 1.2 | Caruana, Fabiano | 2773 | ½ - ½ | Artemiev, Vladislav | 2769 | ||
| 1.3 | So, Wesley | 2741 | ½ - ½ | Karjakin, Sergey | 2709 | ||
| 1.4 | Krush, Irina | 2392 | ½ - ½ | Goryachkina, Aleksandra | 2502 |
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi's woes continued as he lost another game in round seven. It was GM Hikaru Nakamura who kept a slight edge throughout their game (a 5.Na4 Grünfeld), and capitalized on what could be interpreted as a "positional" error in a rook endgame:
| Bo. | Fed | India | Rtg | 2½:1½ | Fed | Rest of the World | Rtg |
| 2.1 | Anand, Viswanathan | 2751 | 1 - 0 | Radjabov, Teimour | 2758 | ||
| 2.2 | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2636 | 0 - 1 | Firouzja, Alireza | 2703 | ||
| 2.3 | Harikrishna, Pentala | 2690 | 1 - 0 | Cori, Jorge | 2599 | ||
| 2.4 | Harika, Dronavalli | 2450 | ½ - ½ | Muzychuk, Mariya | 2506 |
India finally scored its first victory in the tournament thanks to wins by both GM Viswanathan Anand and GM Pentala Harikrishna.
Interestingly, Anand chose 1.d4 as the first move against GM Teimour Radjabov, who played his old love, the King's Indian. There are only five games in the database by Anand against the KID, all of them featuring the Bayonet Attack (9.b4). He scored an unbeaten 3-1 in 1996 and 1997 but lost his last game in it to Nakamura in 2011.
Radjabov's 11...Rxa5 echoed GM Bobby Fischer's 12...Nh5 in the third march game against GM Boris Spassky in Reykjavik 1972. Although he got some play, Radjabov was still slightly worse throughout and then made a big mistake on move 28.
| Bo. | Fed | China | Rtg | 2½:1½ | Fed | Europe | Rtg |
| 3.1 | Ding Liren | 2836 | ½ - ½ | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2860 | ||
| 3.2 | Wei Yi | 2752 | ½ - ½ | Aronian, Levon | 2778 | ||
| 3.3 | Yu Yangyi | 2738 | 1 - 0 | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2774 | ||
| 3.4 | Ju Wenjun | 2610 | ½ - ½ | Muzychuk, Anna | 2533 |
Top seed China impressively secured a place in the Superfinal with two rounds to spare after another day with two wins. First, Europe was set aside by China's MVP GM Yu Yangyi, who improved his score to a splendid 5.5/7 before he was rested in the next round.
His game with GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda was pretty:
GM Simon Williams analyzed the game as well for our YouTube audience.
The end of the game between GM Levon Aronian and GM Wei Yi was nice. Here it is as a puzzle. What do you play as White, and why is it a draw?
When the eval bar show 0.00, but @LevAronian has to find a brilliant only move to save the game. 😬
— Chess.com (@chesscom) May 8, 2020
Watch #NationsCup on https://t.co/d7eYWvnVMF! pic.twitter.com/gnHseYQZpk
Round 8
| Bo. | Fed | Russia | Rtg | 1½:2½ | Fed | China | Rtg |
| 1.1 | Nepomniachtchi, Ian | 2778 | ½ - ½ | Ding Liren | 2836 | ||
| 1.2 | Artemiev, Vladislav | 2769 | ½ - ½ | Wang Hao | 2750 | ||
| 1.3 | Karjakin, Sergey | 2709 | ½ - ½ | Wei Yi | 2752 | ||
| 1.4 | Goryachkina, Aleksandra | 2502 | 0 - 1 | Hou Yifan | 2621 |
"The other female players have not been missing GM Hou Yifan," commentator IM Danny Rensch joked during the live broadcast. In fact, everyone has been missing her in the last two years and the women's number-one player (apart from the inactive GM Judit Polgar) has been playing great chess so far.
With a straightforward win against GM Aleksandra Goryachkina, Hou brought her score to 3.5/4 and secured another two match points for China, who will go into the final day of the round-robin phase with a four-point lead over the USA.
| Bo. | Fed | Europe | Rtg | 2 : 2 | Fed | India | Rtg |
| 2.1 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2860 | ½ - ½ | Anand, Viswanathan | 2751 | ||
| 2.2 | Aronian, Levon | 2778 | 0 - 1 | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2636 | ||
| 2.3 | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2774 | 1 - 0 | Harikrishna, Pentala | 2690 | ||
| 2.4 | Muzychuk, Anna | 2533 | ½ - ½ | Koneru, Humpy | 2483 |
Europe was down 1-2 (as GM Vidit Gujrathi had won a good game against Aronian) when Duda won an important game against Harikrishna to level the score. This way, the team remained in striking distance of the U.S.
.@viditchess pumps his fist after scoring a fine win against @LevAronian! 🙌#NationsCup pic.twitter.com/NC1ooicFJy
— Chess.com (@chesscom) May 8, 2020
| Bo. | Fed | Rest of the World | Rtg | 1 : 3 | Fed | USA | Rtg |
| 3.1 | Firouzja, Alireza | 2703 | ½ - ½ | Nakamura, Hikaru | 2829 | ||
| 3.2 | Amin, Bassem | 2608 | 0 - 1 | Caruana, Fabiano | 2773 | ||
| 3.3 | Cori, Jorge | 2599 | 0 - 1 | So, Wesley | 2741 | ||
| 3.4 | Muzychuk, Mariya | 2506 | ½ - ½ | Krush, Irina | 2392 |
Team USA managed to finish the day a point ahead of Europe thanks to a win against the Rest of the World, the only team that never seemed to have a chance in this event.
GM Fabiano Caruana won a spectacular game against Egypt's GM Bassem Amin where both players sacrificed an exchange, and the world number two eventually crashed through on the kingside. Here's the game, with notes by Caruana taken from his appearance in the live broadcast:
FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup | Round 8 Standings
| # | Fed | Team | 1a | 1b | 2a | 2b | 3a | 3b | 4a | 4b | 5a | 5b | 6a | 6b | MP | BP | TB3 | TB4 | TB5 |
| 1 | China | 2½ | 3 | 2½ | 2 | 2½ | 2½ | 3 | 3½ | 15 | 21,5 | 0 | 308,3 | 50,5 | |||||
| 2 | USA | 1½ | 1 | 3 | 2½ | 2 | 2½ | 2½ | 3 | 11 | 18 | 0 | 252 | 48,5 | |||||
| 3 | Europe | 1 | 1½ | 3 | 2 | 2½ | 2½ | 2 | 2½ | 10 | 17 | 0 | 264,5 | 43 | |||||
| 4 | Russia | 2 | 1½ | 1 | 1½ | 2 | 1½ | 2 | 3 | 5 | 14,5 | 1 | 240,3 | 34,5 | |||||
| 5 | India | 1½ | 2 | 1½ | 1½ | 2 | 2 | 1½ | 2½ | 5 | 14,5 | 1 | 225,8 | 36,5 | |||||
| 6 | Rest of the World | 1 | ½ | 1½ | 1 | 1½ | 1 | 2½ | 1½ | 2 | 10,5 | 0 | 175,3 | 27 |
The FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup is a team competition held from May 5-10, 2020 on Chess.com featuring Russia, USA, Europe, China, India, plus a team representing the "Rest of the World." The total prize fund is $180,000, sponsored by Chess.com.
The first stage consists of a double round-robin, with each team playing each other twice. The top two teams after 10 rounds qualify for a "Superfinal" match.
All matches are played on four boards: three with male players and one with female players. The time control for all games is 25 minutes + 10 seconds increment per move, starting from move one.
Games Day 4 for replay/download
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- FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup: All The Info
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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