Istanbul Chess Olympiad: First Round today

A record-breaking 158 countries will start off with the first round at the Istanbul Chess Olympiad in Turkey today at 15:00 local time (India time 5.30 pm). You can watch live at the official website. The live video feed is at this link. The drawing of colours took place during the opening ceremony at the WOW Convention center in Istanbul. The ceremony began with the national anthem of Turkey, followed by a tribute to chess players in history, traditional dances and programmes. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the Minister of Youth and Sports Suat Kilic, and the Turkish Chess Federation President Ali Nihat Yazici greeted the participants.

FIDE President Kirsan Ilymzhinov said, “The representatives of 158 national chess federations have arrived to Istanbul to participate in the prestigious Tournament of Nations. This is the new record in the Olympiad’s history. The players will demonstrate their skill and strength of character in tense matches for the main team trophy in chess: Cups of Hamilton-Russell, Vera Menchik and Nona Gaprindashvili.”

Ilyumzhinov said, “I would like to express our sincere gratitude for holding the event on such high level. This Olympiad is another confirmation of high authority of the Turkish chess school. “

Ali Nihat Yazici thanked the government, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the FIDE leadership, the city management and Mayor of Istanbul, and the sponsors for the essential support for the 2012 Olympiad. Mr. Yazici said chess is highly developed now in Turkey and the number of chess players exceeds 2,35,000 with additional 60,000 chess trainers and coaches working in the chess clubs.

The Minister of Youth and Sports Suat Kilic welcomed everyone to the record breaking Chess Olympiad. Mr. Kilic said that he is very happy that the 40th Chess Olympiad takes place in Istanbul and emphasized that he will support the Turkish Chess Federation in the future, in order to see chess globally around the country.

After the official anthem of FIDE and the rising of the “Gens una sumus” flag, Chief Arbiter IA Panagiotis Nikolopoulos conducted the drawing of colours. The top seeded team in the open section Russia will play with black on the first board. The top seeded team in the women’s section China will start with the white color on the first board today.

India play Wales in the first round in the open section with the following pairings:

Bo. 90Wales Rtg – 13India Rtg 0 : 011.1 IM Jones, Richard 2393 – GM Harikrishna, Pentala 268511.2 Kett, Tim 2237 – GM Negi, Parimarjan 266411.3 Dineley, Richard 2259 – GM Gupta, Abhijeet 263711.4 CM Jones, Iolo 2243 – GM Gopal, Geetha Narayanan 2550

India play Macedonia in the women’s section with the following board pairings:

Bo. 68FYROM Rtg – 6India Rtg 0 : 06.1 Bejatovic, Bojana 1978 – GM Dronavalli, Harika 25036.2 Stojkovska, Monika 1939 – IM Karavade Sanjay, Eesha 23716.3 Nikolovska, Dragana 1828 – IM Sachdev, Tania 23796.4 Lakinska, Simona 1655 – WGM Soumya, Swaminathan 2271

The top-15 seeds (based on team average rating):

Open: 1. Russia (2769); 2. Ukraine (2730), 3. Armenia (2724), 4. Azerbaijan (2719), 5. Hungary (2708), 6. USA (2702), 7. China (2694), 8. France (2684), 9. Netherlands (2682), 10. Bulgaria (2678), 11. England (2677), 12. Israel (2676), 13. India (2673), 14. Germany (2667) and 15. Cuba (2661).

Women:1. China (2531), 2. Russia (2513), 3. Georgia (2490), 4. Ukraine (2471), 5. USA (2419), 6. India (2412), 7. Poland (2408), 8. Armenia (2404), 9. Germany (2391), 10. Romania (2377), 11. Spain (2374), 12. Hungary (2364), 13. Bulgaria (2358), 14. France (2350) and 15. Cuba (2335).