Chess digest, Sep. 19–23: Uzbekistan edge India, China and Kazakhstan stay perfect, Israel forfeit on Yom Kippur
Uzbekistan beat India to take the sole open lead with China and Armenia a point behind, China and Kazakhstan stay perfect in the women's event, Israel forfeit both round-six matches over Yom Kippur, and FIDE's presidential race reaches its final week in Samarkand.
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Coverage window: after 10:45 Sofia time on September 19 through 10:45 on September 23, 2026.
Rounds four, five and six of the 46th Chess Olympiad are in the books, and the open section has its first sole leader. Uzbekistan, the host nation and 2022 champion, beat defending champion India 2½–1½ in round six on Monday to reach 12/12, with China and Armenia a match point behind. 1 2
China and Kazakhstan are the only teams still perfect in the women's event, both on 12/12, and they meet in round seven. 3 The two Israeli teams forfeited both of their round-six matches because Yom Kippur ran from sunset on Sunday until after dusk on Monday; the Netherlands and Bulgaria took 4–0 wins that count towards the tiebreaks. 2 3
Between rounds, the campaign for the FIDE presidency entered its final week ahead of the September 26 vote, and Freedom Holding, the company of one of the three candidates, was named general partner of November's world-title match. 4 5 6
Open section: Uzbekistan take the sole lead from India
Saturday's fourth round passed without an upset among the leading matches, all of them between teams on perfect scores. The biggest margin came from the United States, 3½–½ against Ukraine. Levon Aronian called his own position "dead lost" against 18-year-old European champion Roman Dehtiarov, then sacrificed his queen for a chaotic position and won; Chess.com made it the Game of the Day. Fabiano Caruana beat Vasyl Ivanchuk on board one, and Hans Niemann drew with Ihor Samunenkov for the other half point. 7
Uzbekistan beat Türkiye 2½–1½, with Nodirbek Yakubboev winning on board three after Black's 9...Nxd4 left an isolated pawn. India beat Spain 3–1: Arjun Erigaisi's 26.0-0!! was the move of the match against Maksim Chigaev, and Gukesh Dommaraju converted an exchange against Alexei Shirov. China's Wei Yi produced the day's showpiece, a 32.Nxf7!! windmill against Serbia's Aleksandar Indjic. 7 8 Lithuania, the 37th seed, beat Croatia 3–1, and Azerbaijan against the Czech Republic and France against Romania both ended in draws. Eight teams were left perfect. 7 8
Sunday's fifth round cut that group to three. Germany, seeded fifth, beat the top-seeded United States 2½–1½ after being lower-rated on all four boards. Frederik Svane's win over Niemann was the decisive game, and it turned on 27.Nc5!!, a move Svane played almost instantly; he said afterwards that he had reached the same position against Michael Adams in the German league and called that earlier game perhaps the best of his career. Matthias Bluebaum held Wesley So to a draw in a fortress endgame to close the match out. 9 10
Uzbekistan swept Hungary 4–0, with both Nodirbeks winning with the black pieces, Abdusattorov over Richard Rapport and Yakubboev over Benjamin Gledura, before Javokhir Sindarov beat Peter Leko and Shamsiddin Vokhidov beat Gleb Dudin. India beat the Netherlands 3–1, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu beating an Anish Giri who had won all four of his previous games, and Gukesh winning against Erwin l'Ami after 23.f4? met 23...c3. China and Armenia drew 2–2. 10 Yakubboev crossed 2700 on the live list during that round. 9
Monday's sixth round paired the winners of the last two Olympiads. Three of the four boards ended in heavy-piece endgame draws, leaving the match to board three, where Nihal Sarin had the better position and 29 minutes to Yakubboev's three. Nihal pushed on Yakubboev's clock, erred with 36...Kxg5? and then blundered with 37...Nf5??. Yakubboev found 38.Ne6+ Rxe6 39.gxh4+, winning the black queen, and converted a queen against rook and bishop; the win took him to 4½/5. 1 2
Nihal Sarin on board three of Uzbekistan–India in round six, moments after 37...Nf5?? gave Nodirbek Yakubboev the winning 38.Ne6+. The board-three game was the only decisive one in the match. Photo: Michal Walusza / FIDE, via ChessBase.
China moved into joint second by beating Germany 3–1. Ding Liren beat Vincent Keymer from a rook-and-opposite-coloured-bishops endgame, breaking through with 40.f5 and 41.h5!, and Xu Xiangyu beat Alexander Donchenko with two bishops against two knights. Armenia edged Iran 2½–1½ on Gabriel Sargissian's win on board four. 2 The United States beat Norway 2½–1½ after Niemann won on move 68 following an Urkedal blunder, and Bulgaria and Uzbekistan 2 scored upset wins over Ukraine and Spain. 2
Open standings after round six:
| # | Team | Match points | Board points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Uzbekistan | 12 | 19½ |
| 2 | China | 11 | 18½ |
| 3 | Armenia | 11 | 17 |
| 4 | France | 10 | 17½ |
| 5 | Netherlands | 10 | 16 |
| 6 | Türkiye | 10 | 17½ |
Eleven teams sit on 10 match points, India and Germany among them. 2 Uzbekistan, China and Armenia have yet to lose a single individual game, and Uzbekistan's 19½ board points are the highest in the field. 2 Gukesh has played all six rounds for India and stands on five points, with four wins and two draws, after falling below 2700 on the live list earlier in the event. 10 1
Women's event: China and Kazakhstan pull two points clear
The United States were the story of round four, beating Spain 3½–½ to reach 15/16 individual points, with Tatev Abrahamyan, Carissa Yip and Alice Lee all winning and Lee moving to 4/4. Ten teams were still on 8/8 match points. 7 China beat Hungary by the same 3½–½, Bulgaria beat Romania and Serbia beat Iran, while Georgia, the second seeds, were held to 2–2 by 34th-seeded Austria. 7 11
Round five brought Poland's third straight Olympiad win over India, the defending champions. Aleksandra Maltsevskaya won the only decisive game, against Vaishali Rameshbabu on board two, after Black took on pawn weaknesses in a London System endgame. 12 9 The United States dropped to a 2–2 draw with Uzbekistan, rescued by Alice Lee's win over Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova after Afruza Khamdamova had beaten Yip on the top board; Rose Atwell escaped a lost position on board four, where her opponent had to force a draw by perpetual check. Poland, China, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan went into round six as the four teams still perfect. 9
Monday sorted them out. China beat Poland 3½–½ behind wins from Song Yuxin, Lu Miaoyi and Yan Tianqi, after Zhu Jiner had escaped with a draw against Oliwia Kiolbasa from a position in which she could not castle and had almost no moves. Kazakhstan edged Azerbaijan 2½–1½ on Alua Nurman's win over Gunay Mammadzada, who chose 28...Rd6? where 28...Bb6 was required. 3 India bounced back from the Poland defeat by beating the United States 3–1, with Vantika Agrawal and Savitha Shri winning on the bottom two boards, and Georgia beat hosts Uzbekistan 3½–½. 3 1
Women's standings after round six:
| # | Team | Match points | Board points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 12 | 20½ |
| 2 | Kazakhstan | 12 | 18½ |
| 3 | India | 10 | 18½ |
| 4 | Bulgaria | 10 | 19 |
| 5 | Germany | 10 | 16½ |
| 6 | Switzerland | 10 | 18 |
Eleven teams are tied on 10 points behind the two leaders, the lowest-seeded of them Switzerland, Armenia and Mongolia. 3 China's Song Yuxin has scored 5½/6 for a 2633 performance rating, Zhu Jiner 3½/4 for 2720, and India's Savitha Shri has a perfect 5/5. 3 For Kazakhstan, Nurman is on 4/5 with a 2482 performance rating and Elnaz Kaliakhmet 4½/5 with 2471. 3
Alua Nurman, the 19-year-old who decided Kazakhstan's round-six match. Her win over Gunay Mammadzada on the third board was the only decisive game of a 2½–1½ win that kept Kazakhstan level with China. Photo: Michal Walusza / FIDE, via ChessBase.
Israel forfeit both round-six matches over Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur began at sunset on Sunday, September 20 and ended after dusk on Monday, September 21, the day of round six. Israel's open team forfeited all four boards against the Netherlands and the women's team forfeited all four against Bulgaria, giving away two 4–0 match wins without a move being played. 2 1
The Israeli delegation had already played its round-five matches against Singapore earlier in the day and in a different setting. For round six it proposed meeting the Netherlands later on Monday night or on Tuesday's rest day. The Netherlands declined both alternatives and were awarded the match, and Bulgaria did the same in the women's section. 2
The Bulgaria–Israel pairing in round six of the women's event, with the boards set, the clocks running and the teams absent for Yom Kippur. Bulgaria took the match 4–0. Photo: Rafal Oleksiewicz / FIDE, via ChessBase.
The Israeli Chess Federation published a letter from FIDE confirming that the team's schedule "will be adjusted" for the holiday. Gil Borochovsky, chief executive of the Israel Chess Association, said FIDE had done nothing to reduce the damage: "They could have at least tried to prevent a 4:0 score, which would greatly hurt us in the rankings later on. We will consider our steps." 1
Both results land inside the tiebreak count that separates teams on equal match points. The Netherlands sit fifth in the open section on 10 match points, ahead of Türkiye and India on the first tiebreak, and Bulgaria hold fourth in the women's event. Peter Heine Nielsen wrote on X that a 4–0 forfeit in a match involving a medal contender hands an advantage to the team that receives it at the expense of the other contenders. 1 2
FIDE's presidential vote, and a new backer for the world-title match
The FIDE Congress is meeting in Samarkand alongside the Olympiad, and the General Assembly elects a new president on September 26. Three candidates are standing: the Kazakh businessman Timur Turlov, who is president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation, and the German entrepreneurs Jan Henric Buettner and Wadim Rosenstein. 4 5 The seat opened when Arkady Dvorkovich suspended his presidential powers after the European Union sanctioned him in July; Viswanathan Anand has been interim president since. 13
Turlov told Reuters on September 21 that a FIDE under him would keep following the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling that bars Russian teams from FIDE events. "We will follow this CAS ruling because we have to be compliant with the Olympic movement," he said, adding that exclusion from the Olympic movement would hurt chess badly. He also said he hopes the Russian federation will eventually meet the conditions for a return, and that he would address Ukrainian sanctions against him by working with the Ukrainian team: "I want to reunite FIDE as much as I can to get different representations." Visa delays affecting delegates travelling to the Olympiad and Congress have hung over the campaign, and Turlov said he had raised his concerns with the organisers. 4
On September 20 FIDE announced that Freedom Holding Corp., the Kazakhstan-based financial group Turlov founded and runs, had become general partner of the Salesforce FIDE World Championship Match. The 14-game match between Gukesh and Sindarov opens at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on November 22, with both players aged 20, the youngest title contest since the championship began in 1886. Freedom has sponsored FIDE events since 2023, including the World Rapid and Blitz Championships. 6
Also this window
- Hikaru Nakamura won his 67th Bullet Brawl. The September 19 edition was his second straight week in first place and his 18th win of the year in the weekly bullet arena. 14
- Alireza Firouzja won Titled Tuesday on September 22 with 10/11. He started 7/7, lost to Fabiano Caruana, then won his last three games; it was his second Titled Tuesday of the year and his 22nd overall, behind only Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen. Denis Lazavik finished second on 9½ and Ian Nepomniachtchi third on tiebreak. First prize was $2,500, and the $4,250 perfect-score bounty went unclaimed. 15
- Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus is posting the performance rating of the open event. The 15-year-old Turkish grandmaster has 4½/5 with a 2924 tournament performance rating, which places him 18th in the live world rankings; he came from behind to beat Switzerland's Sebastian Bogner on Monday with 52.Rh8 after 51...Qb7??. 2
- Dionisio Sganzerla, who played chess in a Brazilian shopping mall for more than 20 years, died on September 12 at 96. Known as "Mr. Dionisio", he set up his board at Goiânia Shopping's food court every weekend from 2000, offered free lessons as well as games, and in 2023 had the space named "Cantinho do Sr. Dionisio" in his honour. The mall marked his 95th birthday there in May 2025. 16
- Greenland are playing their first Chess Olympiad, and their board one is playing his first over-the-board tournament. Egon Mattaaq, 24, lives in Upernavik in north-western Greenland and won his country's first official national championship in April, scoring 6/7 in a ten-player event played online because of the distances involved. 17
- A charity is trying to raise $100,000 to bring chess to 5,000 more Rohingya children. Movement in Refuge, whose founder Magnus Wolfe-Murray is at the Olympiad, wants to expand a FIDE-backed chess programme in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, over two years, with the long-term goal of forming a refugee youth team. 18
What to watch next
| Date & time (Europe/Sofia) | Event & location | Checkpoint |
|---|---|---|
| September 23, 13:00 | 46th Chess Olympiad, Samarkand | Round 7. Uzbekistan play China on the top open board, with Armenia–United States and England–India below them; in the women's event the two perfect teams, China and Kazakhstan, meet on board two. 1 |
| September 24–26, 13:00 daily | 46th Chess Olympiad, Samarkand | Rounds 8, 9 and 10, each starting at 3 p.m. local time. 19 |
| September 26 | FIDE General Assembly, Samarkand | The presidential election, with Turlov, Buettner and Rosenstein standing, and the vote for elected vice-presidents. 4 5 |
| September 27, 09:00 | 46th Chess Olympiad, Samarkand | Round 11 starts at 11 a.m. local time, with the closing ceremony later the same day. 19 |
| November 22 | Salesforce World Championship Match, Geneva, Switzerland | Gukesh defends the title against Javokhir Sindarov over 14 games, opening at the Palais des Nations; both players will be 20. 6 |
References
1Chess.com: Nihal Blunders Queen As Uzbekistan Takes Sole Lead; Indian Women Hit Back To Beat U.S.
2ChessBase: Samarkand R6 (open) — Uzbekistan beat India to take the sole lead
3ChessBase: Samarkand R6 (women) — China and Kazakhstan remain perfect
4Reuters: CAS ruling on Russia a red line for FIDE, says presidential candidate Turlov
5ChessBase: FIDE Elections 2026 Announced
6ChessBase: Freedom Holding Corp. backs World Championship Match as general partner
7Chess.com: U.S. Wins 3.5-0.5 In Both Sections As Favorites Allow No Upsets
8ChessBase: Samarkand R4 (open) — Eight-way tie at the top as favourites hold firm
9Chess.com: Top Seeds Tumble As Germany Beats U.S. While Poland Defeats Indian Women
10ChessBase: Samarkand R5 (open) — Germany stun USA, share the lead with India and Uzbekistan
11ChessBase: Samarkand R4 (women) — United States set the pace with 15/16 board points
12ChessBase: Samarkand R5 (women) — Setback for India
13Chess.com: Dvorkovich Suspends FIDE Presidency After EU Sanctions; Anand Named Interim President
14Chess.com: Nakamura Makes It Back-To-Back Bullet Brawls
15Chess.com: On-Fire Firouzja Finishes First In Titled Tuesday
16Chess.com: 'Mister Dionisio,' Who Played Chess At Brazilian Mall For 20 Years, Dies At 96
17ChessBase: Egon Mattaaq — His tournament debut at the Olympiad
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