Chess Olympiad India is the leader in the women’s, and Gukesh is the top board with a score of 66

Armenia defeated India 2 with a 2.5-1.5 score and took the lead with 12 match points at the end of the sixth round of the 44th FIDE Chess Olympiad, thanks to significant wins by GMs Samvel Ter-Sahakyan and Robert Hovhannisyan. GM Fabiano Caruana defeated GM Parham Maghsoodloo in a vital match to assist the United States to defeat Iran and move into second place in the rankings with 11 match points. With 10 match points, India 2, Uzbekistan, France, India, Netherlands, Cuba, India 3, Germany, Kazakhstan, Serbia, and Peru are all tied for the third-13th place.

GM Dommaraju Gukesh of India 2 continued his dream run on the top board with his sixth consecutive victory, this time over GM Gabriel Sargissian, while GM Anish Giri of the Netherlands defeated GM Baadur Jobava of Georgia in a stunningly innovative game.

GM Koneru Humpy and IM Vaishali R achieved two vital victories in a fight of heavyweights, assisting India to a 3-1 victory against Georgia, a powerhouse in women’s chess, and taking sole lead in the FIDE Women’s Chess Olympiad. With 12 match points, India leads the standings.

20th-seeded Romania continued its strong play, drawing 2-2 with second-seeded Ukraine, and was joined by Azerbaijan, which overcame Kazakhstan in a tie for third place with 11 match points apiece. With 10 match points, Poland, Ukraine, Armenia, Bulgaria, Israel, Georgia, Vietnam, and the Netherlands are tied for fourth to eleventh place.

WIM Miruana-Daria Lehaci (2193) of Romania won the point after her opponent, IM Iulija Osmak (2420) of Ukraine, blundered a piece in a drawish conclusion, allowing her side to tie Ukraine.

Olympiad Camaraderie

Chess is an isolated activity, yet we as humans like connecting with others. We have adversaries in our countrymen, with whom we have fought over the chessboard since infancy, but when we play as a team, we instantly discover instant camaraderie—after all, we all have a shared love for the game. We dress similarly or wear uniforms, and we like battling our opponents while sitting close to each other. Olympiads are also places where we see friends we don’t see very often—in fact, some of them we only see during Olympiads! Even if they do not compete in the Olympics, groups of individuals working at the venue form friendships—two weeks is a long time in life, after all.