Istanbul Chess Olympiad R3: Ukraine Survives Israel Scare in Open; China Ground Down Ukraine in Women's Section

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

The Istanbul Chess Olympiad 2012 is only three rounds old. The fun is just starting with stronger teams finding opponents closer in strength. Ukraine nearly lost against Israel, but for a cool turnaround by Ruslan Ponomariov. GM Ponomariov was clearly worse against his Israeli counterpart GM Maxim Rodshtein, but the former World Chess Champion somehow turned the tables after the first time control and managed to win the game. (left Ruslan Ponomariov).

GM Boris Avrukh ground down GM Pavel Eljanov, but GM Andrei Volokitin showed no mercy against GM Evgeny Postny. With Ivanchuk and Gelfand drawing on the top board, Ukraine won the match by 2,5-1,5.

Russia again played safely, scoring three draws and a win by Jakovenko in their match against Latvia. After yesterday's exhausting game with Lithuania, USA top board Hikaru Nakamura played the necessary 30 moves to take a draw with GM Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela. Nakamura's team-mates cleared the rest of the opposing team for the convincing 3,5-0,5 victory.

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