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Today was the first round of games in the 38th Chess Olympiad being held in Dresden, Germany.  We are expecting the United States team to get a medal this year.  We have one of the strongest teams we have ever put together.

The U.S. team includes Gata Kamsky,  Alexander Onischuk, Yuri Shulman, Nakamura and Varuzhan Akobian.  The U.S. played Iceland in the first match and won 2.5 to 1.5.  Kamsky drew on board one while Shulman was beat by GM Henrik Danielsen.

The Shulman-Danielsen game was pretty good, however, I would love to know what kind time was left at the end of the game.  It appeared that Shulman kinda broke down in the final position as if the moves were blitzed off or something. The game is available here.

GM Hikaru Nakamura did not play the first round which allowed alternate Akobian to get in early.  FM Mike Klein is one of the masters covering the tournament for the United States Chess Federation.  He has a very detailed report here.  If you are unfamiliar with the United States Chess Federation click here for their site.

Round 1 on 2008/11/13 at 15:00
Bo.	45	Iceland (ISL)	Rtg	-	10	United States of America (USA)	Rtg	1½:2½
11.1	GM	Stefansson Hannes	2575	-	GM	Kamsky Gata	2729	½ – ½
11.2	GM	Steingrimsson Hedinn	2540	-	GM	Onischuk Alexander	2644	0 – 1
11.3	GM	Danielsen Henrik	2492	-	GM	Shulman Yuri	2616	1 – 0
11.4	IM	Kristjansson Stefan	2474	-	GM	Akobian Varuzhan	2606	0 – 1

Gata Kamsky and Veselin Topalov in Sofia, 2007.
Photo Macauley Peterson

We were hoping to get confirmation on the match arrangements today only to find out that they might not come until next week. Someone might have exaggerated the progress of those arrangements. Let’s hope that we have just seen an early announcement.

There is nothing more exciting for U.S. chess than Gata Kamsky’s run for the World Championship. Later this year, Gata will face former world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in a match, while current world champion, India’s Viswanathan Anand, defends his title against his predecessor, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. Victory against Topalov will mean a title match for Gata in 2009. Read Gata’s own Chess Life annotations from his World Cup win in the March Chess Life Magazine.

This will be Gata’s third attempt to climb the Olympus of chess. In 1993, the rival organisations FIDE and PCA each held Interzonal tournaments. Kamsky qualified from both, and proceeded to wipe out one top GM after another in the two parallel world championship cycles. As FIDE attempted to establish a successor to the title vacated by the formation of the PCA by Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short, Gata decisively defeated Anand, 6-4 (on the Indian’s home turf!), and two others in matches before finally succumbing to Anatoly Karpov, 7.5-10.5, in their 1996 FIDE World Championship match.

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