36th Chess Olympiad Round 1 Results

Round 1 of the 36th Chess Olympiad took place today.
Story on ChessBase with pictures
Men's Results
Women's Results
All the games (ChessBase file download)
Round Bulletin (PDF download)

On the men's side...

On the team level, the U.S. (#10) beat the Dominican Republic (#73) by a score of 3.5-0.5. On the individual level, GM Onischuk (2653) beat IM Mateo (2453), GM Kaidanov (2611) beat IM Dominguez (2353, no relation) and GM Novikov (2588) beat FM Alvarado (2290). GM Gulko (2600) surprisingly was held to a draw by untitled player Puntier (2255).

It's interesting to note that there were absolutely no upsets. Every higher rated team won the match, with the single exception of Croatia (#28) which was held to a 2-2 draw by Iraq (#93). The only other relative failures were India (#5) and England (#6), which only scored 2.5-1.5 over their respective opponents, Uruguay (#68) and Turkey (#69).

On other boards, there were a few (but not many) upsets:

• GM Azmaiparashvili (2672) lost to FM Mikheev (2332)
• GM Nataf (2565) lost to FM Najjar (2337)
• GM Grigore (2491) lost to untitled player Ferrufino (2231)
• GM Goran (2535) lost to unrated player Salih
• GM Artashes (2584) drew with Gunbayar (2229)
• GM Sveshnikov (2512) drew with Nsubuga (2217)
• GM Campora (2549) drew with unrated player Mungroo

The leaders after round 1 would be those teams that dispatched their opponents 4-0. Those teams are Ukraine, Israel, Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Greece, Sweden, Serbia-Montenegro, Norway, Slovakia, Estonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, the Phillipines, Scotland, Spain B, Australia, Chile, Bangladesh, Iran, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Ecuador, Colombia, Portugal, Albania, Mexico and Singapore.

On the women's side...

On the team level, the U.S. (#3) beat Venezuela (#45) by a score of 2.5-0.5. On the individual level, GM Polgar (2567) beat WIM Sanchez-Castillo (2141), WGM Zatonskih (2440) beat Hernandez (2100), and WIM Shahade (2361) drew with WIM Martinez (2201).

There was one upset, with Malaysia (#56) beating Armenia (#14) 2-1. Also, Guatemala (#77) and Colombia (#55) held Mongolia (#31) and Slovakia (#12), respectively, to 1.5-1.5 draws.

The leaders after round 1 would be those teams that dispatched their opponents 3-0. Those teams are Ukraine, France, Bulgaria, Serbia-Montenegro, Hungary, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Kazhakstan, Vietnam, Sweden, Moldova, Latvia, England, Slovenia, Argentina, Switzerland, Israel, Croatia, Australia, Spain A, Spain B, Uzbekhistan, Estonia, Ecuador, Iran and Kyrgystan.

You can keep tabs on the Olympiad at http://www.36chessolympiad.com/. In particular, the rules of the event are here.