China took an early lead at the FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup as the only team to win both matches on the first day. The top seeds defeated both team Rest of the World and team Europe.
The USA is in sole second place after beating Russia in the second round and a tie with India in the first. Team Rest of the World is on two match points, while India, Russia, and Europe share fourth place with one match point.
The Chess.com Day 1 Live Broadcast for replay.
It was Europe who drew lot number one during the opening ceremony, and therefore it got to play a "home" match twice, which means playing the white pieces on boards one and three. Just like in the first half of the Candidates, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave played GM Ian Nepomniachtchi with the white pieces and this time, playing the Najdorf instead of the French, Nepo held the draw.
GMs Anna Muzychuk and Aleksandra Goryachkina also drew their game on the "female" board four, but the teams traded wins on boards two and three with GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda scoring for Europe. However, it was GM Vladislav Artemiev who stole the show with what was the Game of the Day thanks to a stunning rook sac in the middle of the board:
GM Simon Williams also went through the game in this video.
China had a most convincing first day at the office, with two 3-1 wins and remaining undefeated on all boards. In the first round, women's world number one GM Hou Yifan contributed to the victory with a win against another former women's world champion, GM Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine.
China was already leading the event after the first round because the third match also ended in a tie. GM Humpy Koneru scored a good win against IM Anna Zatonskih but we'll look at the board-two encounter.
GM Fabiano Caruanaplayed a long game that eventually reached the notorious endgame BB vs N. He won it smoothly, to score his second win of the day.
The last time we saw the endgame was at the FIDE World Cup last year:
In the post-game interviewed Caruana revealed not only that he had never studied this ending, but also that he kind of needed to use the restroom for most of the game!
Players are not allowed to leave their room and have to remain visible before their webcam, except when there's a doctor's note.
GM Vidit Gujrathi did manage to get his knight on one of the four preferred squares (b2, b7, g2 or g7) but in this particular case that didn't help him much:
Russia isn't playing with its strongest possible team and that cost them today. With Caruana scoring a fine, technical win against Artemiev and two draws, Nepomniachtchi needed to win against GM Hikaru Nakamura. The only problem was that the double knight endgame was just equal.
Because of the match situation, the Russian GM played for a win too long and suddenly it was Nakamura who was calling the shots:
This match was decided on board three, with two players who had both not played in the first round. It was the Peruvian GM Jorge Cori, who has quite a bit of experience with playing on our site as a member of the Chicago Wind team in the PRO Chess League, who defeated GM Baskaran Adhiban in a sharp endgame:
China's scored its second convincing win against Europe with GM Ding Liren taking board one this time, and reigning women's world champion GM Ju Wenjun playing board fourand winning. Somehow, GM Nana Dzagnidze's opening went completely wrong and in no time her knight on b4 got trapped.
In the post-game interview, Ju said: "I hope we can continue this good performance. I think every team is very strong and before the tournament, it was very difficult to say who is the favorite."
After the second round, Caruana was kind enough to give a lengthy and quite informative interview (begins at the 04:05:09 mark in the embedded live broadcast at the top of this article). He mentioned that he had a hard time not playing too fast and that the time control 25+10 "feels like an eternity" to him in online chess:
"It might just be a habit. I grew up as a kid playing one-minute chess online. It was rare to even play a game that was longer than three minutes without an increment. And there you're just basically blitzing the entire game or you get flagged. I feel I'm still in that blitz mode!"
FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup | Round 2 Standings
The FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup is a team competition held from May 5-10, 2020 on Chess.com featuring Russia, USA, Europe, China, India, plus a team representing the "Rest of the World." The total prize fund is $180,000, sponsored by Chess.com.
The first stage consists of a double round-robin, with each team playing each other twice. The top two teams after 10 rounds qualify for a "Superfinal" match.
All matches are played on four boards: three with male players and one with female players. The time control for all games is25 minutes + 10 seconds increment per move, starting from move one.
Games day 1
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China Takes Lead At FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup - Chess.com
