Photo by Susan Polgar

The cream is rising to the top and the top boards are starting to draw more.  This years Olympiad being held in Dresden, Germany, they have instituted a new rule. No draws before 30 moves.  Even with this new rule some of the games appear to have gone down some quiet lines.

The U.S. did have sweeping success against Hong Kong.  They will need many more of these type results to close the medal gap.

Round 5 on 2008/11/17 at 15:00
Bo.	9	Armenia (ARM)	Rtg	-	20	Netherlands (NED)	Rtg	2½:1½
1.1	GM	Aronian Levon	2757	-	GM	Van Wely Loek	2618	½ – ½
1.2	GM	Akopian Vladimir	2679	-	GM	Smeets Jan	2604	½ – ½
1.3	GM	Sargissian Gabriel	2642	-	GM	Stellwagen Daniel	2605	1 – 0
1.4	GM	Petrosian Tigran L	2629	-	GM	L’Ami Erwin	2610	½ – ½
Bo.	11	Germany 1 (GER1)	Rtg	-	1	Russia (RUS)	Rtg	2 : 2
2.1	GM	Naiditsch Arkadij	2678	-	GM	Kramnik Vladimir	2772	½ – ½
2.2	GM	Khenkin Igor	2647	-	GM	Grischuk Alexander	2719	½ – ½
2.3	GM	Gustafsson Jan	2634	-	GM	Morozevich Alexander	2787	½ – ½
2.4	GM	Fridman Daniel	2630	-	GM	Jakovenko Dmitry	2737	½ – ½
Bo.	5	Hungary (HUN)	Rtg	-	2	Ukraine (UKR)	Rtg	1½:2½
3.1	GM	Leko Peter	2747	-	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	2786	0 – 1
3.2	GM	Polgar Judit	2711	-	GM	Karjakin Sergey	2730	0 – 1
3.3	GM	Almasi Zoltan	2663	-	GM	Eljanov Pavel	2720	1 – 0
3.4	GM	Balogh Csaba	2616	-	GM	Volokitin Andrei	2659	½ – ½
Bo.	19	Norway (NOR)	Rtg	-	4	Azerbaijan (AZE)	Rtg	1 : 3
4.1	GM	Carlsen Magnus	2786	-	GM	Mamedyarov Shakhriyar	2731	½ – ½
4.2	GM	Agdestein Simen	2588	-	GM	Gashimov Vugar	2703	0 – 1
4.3	GM	Lie Kjetil A	2526	-	GM	Huseynov Gadir	2650	½ – ½
4.4	IM	Hammer Jon Ludvig	2522	-	GM	Mammadov Rauf	2631	0 – 1

Round Six will see some interesting matchups. The top ten boards are listed below.

Round 6 on 2008/11/19 at 15:00
No.	SNo		Team	Team	Pts.	MP	Res.	:	Res.	MP	Pts.	Team	Team		SNo
1	1		RUS	Russia	13	9		:		9	14	England	ENG		15
2	2		UKR	Ukraine	12	9		:		9	14½	Germany 1	GER1		11
3	4		AZE	Azerbaijan	15	9		:		9	15½	Armenia	ARM		9
4	7		FRA	France	13½	8		:		8	15½	Poland	POL		21
5	29		BIH	Bosnia & Herzegovina	13½	8		:		8	13½	India	IND		13
6	30		SWE	Sweden	13½	8		:		8	13½	Israel	ISR		8
7	17		GEO	Georgia	12½	8		:		8	13½	China	CHN		3
8	14		ROU	Romania	13½	8		:		8	15½	Bulgaria	BUL		6
9	59		COL	Colombia	13	7		:		7	13	Hungary	HUN		5
10	20		NED	Netherlands	12½	7		:		7	12	Moldova	MDA		26