Children’s checkmate – Newspaper Kommersant No. 144 (7345) of 08/10/2022

The World Chess Olympiad, which ended in Chennai, India, has turned into a parade of sensations and revelations. In men’s competitions, the top three were entirely teams that were completely different from the favorites. And the gold of the Uzbekistan team and the bronze of the second team of India were brought, first of all, by the brilliant performances of their teenage prodigies – Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Gukesh Dommaraju.

It would probably not be a strong exaggeration to say about this World Chess Olympiad as one of the most curious events in chess, not even in this century, but in history in general. Its value, density, of course, greatly undermined absence two teams – the Russian one, which fell under sanctions against the backdrop of a special military operation, and the Chinese one, which refuses international competitions due to anti-coronavirus restrictions at home. But in any case, the Indian tournament has turned into a breathtaking attraction full of incredible discoveries.

The struggle for gold up to the final round was in both competitions. But if in the women’s prize-winning trio – Ukraine, Georgia, India – it turned out to be “normal”, more or less coinciding with the pre-start alignment, then in the men’s there was some kind of unprecedented cruelty against him.

At the World Chess Olympiads, it is customary to calculate favorites in the simplest and, in fact, most reliable way – by the average rating of team members. He rarely fails. But in Chennai, reality didn’t care about ratings.

The US team, which looked at everyone from somewhere beyond the clouds, gathered a detachment of celebrities who used to represent other countries – Italian Fabiano Caruana, Filipino Wesley So, Armenian Levon Aronian, Cuban Leinier Dominguez – ended up in fifth place. The main Indian team, made up of seasoned fighters, is one line higher. And the Norwegians, led by world champion Magnus Carlsen, who, without the Russians and the Chinese, seemed to simply have to fight for at least bronze, and at all stuck somewhere in the depths of the standings.

On the pedestal were those who, if everything was decided by the average rating, would not shine not only with medals – at least the top ten. The second Indian team finished third, and for gold in the final, 11th round, Uzbek and Armenian fought in absentia.

Both of them defeated their opponents – the Dutch and the Spaniards, accumulated an equal number of points in the asset – 19 each, but the priority among the additional indicators (it gives additional weight to the points scored in battles with strong opponents) was better for the national team of Uzbekistan.

All three winners were amazed. The Armenians, who were incredibly powerful in the decade before last and in the past, who won the World Chess Olympiad three times, but then lost, were supposed to finish off the change of citizenship by Levon Aronian, but, as it turned out, they did not. And in the national teams of Uzbekistan and the Indian “double” the age of the players was the most remarkable. The basis of these teams was made up of very young chess players, some of whom were drawn to be called children. For Uzbekistan, 17-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 20-year-old Nodirbek Yakubboev and 16-year-old Javokhir Sindarov fought on the first three boards, 16-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju with Rameshbabu Pragnanandha and 18-year-old Nihal Sarin played for India-2.

And their performance was an ideal confirmation of the thesis that has already become a commonplace about how modern chess has become younger. Especially the personal performance of the leaders of these teams. Nodirbek Abdusattorov opened the scoring for prestigious titles at the end of last year by winning the World Rapid Chess Championship. Now he added a new one to it, gaining 8.5 points in 11 games.

Gukesh Dommaraju looked even brighter. Even experienced commentators of the Olympiad, such as the Russian grandmaster Peter Svidler, could not believe it, but the Indian youth did not suffer losses until the ninth round of the competition. It was a delightful sight for those who have a taste for beautiful chess. He led each game with an iron fist, in each he noticed minor inaccuracies made by the enemy in order to immediately use them. And these were games not only against unknown international masters, but also against the bison of the elite – the Spaniard Alexei Shirov, the Armenian Gabriel Sargsyan, and finally, against Fabiano Caruana, a participant in the 2018 championship match.

Gukesh Dommaraju lost a little only at the end of the Olympiad, gaining one point in three rounds after his phenomenal series and losing a fundamental duel to Abdusattorov, although at some point he had, strictly speaking, a decisive advantage. But even this decline did not deprive him of the status of the undisputed best chess player of the tournament, in which, like in the rest, a short-term rating is also calculated, based solely on the results of this particular competition. So, for the Indian it was 2867, which is three points higher than Magnus Carlsen’s rating in the official classification of the International Chess Federation (FIDE).

Alexey Dospekhov