FIDE Chess Olympiad: A Detailed Preview

As promised in the first installment of this series, with the September FIDE rating lists now available, we can hop into the nitty-gritty of the Olympiad. The material will be organized in sections, so you can skip to the one that interests you the most right away:

1. Facts about the Budapest Olympiad

2. Rating favorites and team compositions

3. Bold predictions (join me in the comments section to make yours!)

   Remember, they're called bold predictions because they have to sound a bit crazy - you won't get bonus points for predicting that India gets a medal in the open section

1. The facts - biggest Olympiad in history!

The centenary anniversary of FIDE brings no fewer than 197 teams in the Open section and another 184 teams in the Women's section. This obliterates all previous records for participation, pushing the number of players up to an astounding 1905! Shockingly, the organizers have managed to find a venue that can host the entirety of the Olympiad in a single playing hall. This represents an important deviation from previous editions, when top GMs rarely shared the same room with the less established federations from round 3 onwards.

Other, more technical details, and useful tidbits:

• 11 rounds of competition (one per day), with one rest day after Round 6 reserved for tourism and relaxation
• The time control is the standard 40 moves in 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes, plus 30 seconds per move from move 1
• Russia is still suspended from international competitions so they can't field a team - the FIDE Congress will have this topic on its agenda
• 64% of participants in the Open and 51% in the Women section already have a FIDE title
• Many amateur players have hopes of obtaining a "Direct Title" (WCM, WFM, CM, FM) by scoring a specific number of points, even if their FIDE rating is lower than the typical range
• 22 teams are not fielding a single FIDE-rated player (18 in the Women's, 4 in the Open)

2. Rating favorites and notable missing players

Let's remind you who won medals at the Chennai 2022 edition:

• 1. Uzbekistan 2. Armenia 3. India-2 (Open)
• 1. Ukraine 2. Georgia 3. India (Women)
• Open individual gold medalists (board 1 thru 5): Gukesh D. (IND), Nihal Sarin (IND), David Howell (ENG) - highest TPR at 2898, Jakhongir Vakhidov (UZB), Mateusz Bartel (POL)
• Women individual gold medalists: Pia Cramling (SWE), Nino Batsiashvili (GEO), Oliwia Kiolbasa (POL) - highest TPR at 2565 , Bat-Erdene Mungunzul (MGL), Jana Schneider (GER)

The rating favorites in the Open section are absolutely clear, with only 3 teams eclipsing the rating average of 2700+. They are the United States of America (2757 average), India (2753), and China (2724).

A quick reminder - only the top 4 players are counted into this average pre-tournament. Things could still change the day before Round 1, when team captains have to submit the Fixed Board Order. There are no restrictions on how you order the players on boards, but only the top 4 boards get counted into the Elo average of the team, so any small changes could still impact the initial seeding.

By rating, two notable absences from team USA are World #2 Hikaru Nakamura (2802) and Hans Niemann (2733), who's been on a tear recently, with OTB match wins against Anish Giri, Nikita Vitiugov, and Etienne Bacrot. Still, team USA has underperformed at the last edition in Chennai, and they're emphasizing a more united team culture this year. Longtime captain John Donaldson will try to steer the ship in the right direction, but India is hungry, and China is bringing its big guns to the fight.

Among dark horse candidates, team France is showing up without Alireza Firouzja, the recent winner of the Grand Chess Tour 2024. Still, a team anchored by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Etienne Bacrot should not be counted out. Uzbekistan, the previous winner under captain Ivan Sokolov, is seeded 4th and captained by no other than Vladimir Kramnik this year. Very interesting...

Richard Rapport (on transfer back from Romania) and Peter Leko have rejoined Hungary's top team, so the home fans will surely have something to root for. Meanwhile, Leko's star pupil Vincent Keymer is the top board for Germany, captained by the ever-present Jan Gustafsson. Despite still being rated 2700, Teimour Radjabov has stepped away from playing chess recently, but will fill the captain's role for Azerbaijan.

In the Women's section, things are less clear. The two big rating favorites are India (2467) and Georgia (2462), followed by a contending group of ~10 teams with average ratings above 2350.

World #6 Humpy Koneru (2530) is not in the lineup for India. Instead, two experienced veterans in Harika Dronavalli and Tania Sachdev are joined by the three youngsters Vaishali R, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal.

World #1 Hou Yifan (2633) is still spending time away from classical OTB chess, but more shocking are the absences of the next three players in the world standings, reigning Women's World Champ Ju Wenjun, Tan Zhongyi, Lei Tingjie. Hence, China (2416) is aligning a young lineup with Zhu Jiner and Lu Miaoyi spearheading the list.

Even more unusual are the absences of the Muzychuk sisters from the lineup of Ukraine (2400). This leaves the top 8 players in the World rankings on the outside looking in, with #9 Nana Dzagnidze (2508) headlining the individual starting list of female players. Having neither of the top 8 players participating could be disappointing for some fans, but it's arguably even more disappointing for those who were hoping to score a GM norm. With only 17 GMs in the section, it seems unlikely, if not nearly mathematically impossible, to face the requisite number of GMs and score a TPR above 2600. Still, there are plenty of young players who are vying for accolades. The race between Divya Deshmukh (2483) and Bibisara Assaubayeva (2482) to hit the 2500 mark before their junior status expires will be scintillating for the remainder of the year.

3. Bold predictions

• Team USA gets edged out on Sonneborn-Berger tiebreaks by team India in the very last round, with a swindle by Arjun in the very last game of the round
• Magnus will actually get some help from his teammates for the first time, and they'll be in contention for medals till the end
• Richard Rapport suddenly performs as a 2900, boosted by a combination of homemade goulash and palinka
• Kazakhstan wins a bronze medal in the Women's section
• The Bermuda party will call an equal number of taxis and ambulances
• The London system gets banned at the 95th FIDE Congress and will carry a 2-year worldwide ban for anybody who employs it regularly
• Dvorkovich gets his reprimand from the Ethics and Discipline Commission retracted
• The Ethics and Discipline Commission gets disbanded entirely
• DGT boards will see their competition surge, and within a single Olympic cycle be replaced as the technology of choice for relaying chess moves globally

Useful links to follow the action

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