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Ninth Round: Before the grand finale! |
 It seems as if Russia didn’t want to destroy the order and handed the first place to Iran again by drawing Georgia on all four boards whereas Iran gained a 2,5-1,5 victory against Lithuania thanks to the win of FM Lorparizangeneh. India also beat Azerbaijan with the same score to preserve an advantage in the medal race going into the final round.
In a very tough round the scores were close. The matches Kazakhstan-Czech Republic and Serbia-Slovakia-A were tied and there were a bunch of 2,5-1,5 scores as one goes down in the list such as Slovakia-B beating Turkey-Turkuaz, Turkey-White against England and Moldova versus Singapore.
Also many teams could extract 3,5 points from their opponents,like Armenia, Australia-A and Poland from Peru, Turkey-Red and South Africa-A respectively. In the match between Armenia and Peru the Peruvian player on the second board didn’t suspect any mate tricks at all but after a simple tactical shot of Petrosyan he was forced to resign immediately.
Tomorrow the final round will be played in the morning at 10.00. In a dramatic finale Iran and Russia will try to come up with maximum points not to let the other one run away with the first prize. Iran seems to be a step ahead but who knows, after the exciting and unpredictable rounds we have seen so far everything’s possible. The matches Poland-Iran and Russia-Armenia will be shown live as usual so don’t miss the action. Also on third board Australia-A will try to beat their strong opponent India with 3-1 at least to steal the bronze medal. All these questions will be answered tomorrow but for now we just want to congratulate all players heartily for their efforts and for an exciting tournament after all! |
