Latvian men’s and women’s chess teams won the fourth duels of the Chess Olympiad in India on Monday.
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Latvian men’s team beat Denmark with 2.5-1.5 in the duel of the open group. Toms Kantāns and Edgars Ungurs won for the Latvians, Ritvars Reimanis fought to a draw, and Maksims Golubovskis lost.
In the women’s tournament, the Latvians prevailed over the Zimbabwean chess players with a score of 2.5-1.5. Laura Rogule won, but the matches in which Ilze Bērziņa, Nellija Maklakova and Melania Luize Jansone took part ended in a draw.
Uzbekistan’s chess players took care of a surprise in this round, who managed to draw 2-2 with the strong USA. 17-year-old Nodirbeks Abdusattorov secured a point for a sensational victory for his team, who beat American Fabiano Caruana, who played with white pieces.
The Latvian men’s team is in 46th place in the “Open” group, while the women’s team is in 50th place in their tournament.
The 44th Chess Olympiad in the Indian city of Chennai will take place until August 10, with chess players playing 11 rounds.
The Chess Olympiad is held every two years, but the 2020 competition was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2018, at the Chess Olympiad, the Latvian women’s national team took 36th place overall, while the men’s team finished the Olympiad in 45th position.
The Latvian team has been participating in the biggest chess event in the world with bigger and smaller breaks since the first Olympics, in which Hermanis Matisons became the winner in the individual tournament in Paris in 1924. However, the last success so far was achieved in 2010, when Ilze Bērziņa won the bronze medal in the individual evaluation.
On the other hand, in the evaluation of teams, Latvia achieved its greatest success in 1992, when the men’s team was fifth, and the ladies won 12th place.
