U.S. Pulls off Stunning Upset Over Russia

GM Hikaru Nakamura, right, took over the No. 4 spot in the world with a win over GM Vladimir Kramnik.

The U.S. beats Russia! Russia is the the number-one seeded team in the event, and all five of their players are ranked within the top 30 strongest chess players in the world. Also, they have a former world champion on their fist board, GM Vladimir Kramnik! They literally could not have a stronger Olympiad team. However, none of that mattered yesterday because the U.S. was determined to win. U.S. team members, GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Gata Kamsky, possesses the most dominate wills in chess; when they want to win, they win. Not only did the U.S. win the match, Nakamura crushed Kramnik and Kamsky trounced GM Alexander Grischuk. The team now has the same number of points as the other three leaders: Armenia, China and Russia.

The U.S. Women's team suffered a dramatic loss to 4th seed, Ukraine. IM Anna Zatonskih competed with one of the strongest female chess players in the world, GM Kateryna Lahno. The Ukrainian Grandmaster outplayed IM Zatonskih in the opening and dominated the position from the early middlegame to the end. IM Irina Krush, who was on a roll with an eight-game winning streak, was finally stopped (held to a draw) by IM Anna Muzychuk. WGM Sabina Foisor played a nice game and drew IM Anna Ushenina. WGM Tatev Abrahamyan lost to IM Inna Yanovska. The team's loss in this match dropped them down to 14th place, and they are trailing the leaders by multiple points. Hopefully, they can pull out a much needed win over Mongolia in round 10.