Board-prizes – Baku World Chess Olympiad 2016 – Closing Ceremony

Board-prizes – Baku World Chess Olympiad 2016 – Closing Ceremony.
World Chess Olympiad 2016 Baku
Russia 2760 United States of America 2740 China 2735 Azerbaijan 2705 Ukraine 2688 France 2678 Poland 2677 England 2672 Hungary 2656 Netherlands 2654 India 2651 Germany 2644 Spain 2628 Cuba 2622 Israel 2622 Croatia 2619 Norway 2613 Czech Republic 2604 Belarus 2602 Turkey 2599 Georgia 2590 Greece 2589 Argentina 2583 Azerbaijan-2 2576 Serbia 2574 Romania 2574 Slovenia 2574 Bulgaria 2572 Latvia 2568 Canada 2560 Brazil 2554 Uzbekistan 2548 Kazakhstan 2547 Sweden 2545 Vietnam 2545 Italy 2544 Moldova 2543 Denmark 2535 Peru 2532 Egypt 2524 Bosnia & Herzegovina 2523 Austria 2522 Paraguay 2511 Iceland 2510 Iran 2509 Australia 2505 Switzerland 2504 Chile 2500 Slovakia 2495 Montenegro 2488 Colombia 2475 Philippines 2464…

Open event[edit]
Main article: Open event at the 42nd Chess Olympiad
The open section of the tournament is being contested by a record number of 180 teams representing 175 nations.[26] Azerbaijan, as host nation, field three teams, whilst the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA), the International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPCA), and the International Chess Committee of the Deaf (ICCD) each provide one team.

The tournament features eight out of the top ten players from the FIDE rating list published in August 2016; only former World Champion Vishwanathan Anand and Levon Aronian are missing the Olympiad. Among the players who are playing in the open section are the World Champion and highest rated player in the world Magnus Carlsen, the challenger in the World Chess Championship 2016 Sergey Karjakin as well as the former World Champions Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov. Grandmaster Eugenio Torre is in the line-up of the Philippines for the record twenty-third time, having played on each Chess Olympiad since 1970 except in Dresden in 2008.[31] On the other hand, Ukraine are weaker for Vassily Ivanchuk, who does not play for the first time after 14 consecutive Olympiads (1988-2014) and 13 appearances on board one (1990-2014). The former World Champion Challenger and leader of the Israeli team in 8 consecutive Olympiads (2000-2014) Boris Gelfand is also missing the Olympiad following a conflict with the Israeil Chess Federation management.[32][33]

The strongest team of the tournament are Russia with an average rating of 2760. Captained by the president of the Russian Chess Federation and FIDE Vice President Andrey Filatov, the team are led by Vladimir Kramnik on board one, the World Champion Challenger Sergey Karjakin on board two, Alexander Grischuk, Evgeny Tomashevsky and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Seven-time Russian Champion and the forth highest ranked Russian player Peter Svidler was not included in the team. United States are the second strongest team with three top ten players, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So, along with Ray Robson and Samuel Shankland. So and Shankland have recently proved that they are in good form after winning the Sinquefield Cup 2016 and the Biel Chess Festival 2016, respectively. The defending champions China are the third team with highest average rating and the only team besides Russia whose all players have rating higher than 2700. They participate with the same line-up that won the gold medal except for Ni Hua who is replaced by Li Chao. The first team of the three that represent the host country Azerbaijan is the forth strongest and completes the group with an average rating exceeding 2700 points. The only change in their line-up from the previous Chess Olympiad is Arkadij Naiditsch, a board one player for Germany in four Olympiads, who is playing instead of Gadir Guseinov.[34]

World Champion and world no. 1 Magnus Carlsen is playing on board one for Norway

World no. 2 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is playing on board one for France

Former World Champion and world no. 3 Vladimir Kramnik is playing on board one for Russia

World no. 4 Fabiano Caruana is playing on board two for the United States

World no. 6 Hikaru Nakamura is playing on board one for the United States

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