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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.
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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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