The 40th Chess Olympiad is taking place in the Turkish metropole of Istanbul, from August 27 to September 10th, 2012. A record of 158 national chess federations have brought teams to Istanbul to participate in this prestigious event, which is being staged in the WOW Hotel and Convention Center, just minutes away from the airport.

Final round clashes

In the Open Section there are three teams tied for first: China, Armenia and Russia, with 17 match points each. One team, Ukraine, is trailing by one match point, and four teams have fifteen match points apiece.

Rank after Round 10 – Open

Rnk SNo Open + = – Pts TB2 TB3 TB4 1 6 China 8 1 1 17 343.5 28.5 127.00 2 3 Armenia 8 1 1 17 336.5 26.5 132.00 3 1 Russia 8 1 1 17 321.5 25.5 132.00 4 2 Ukraine 8 0 2 16 292.5 26.5 121.00 5 4 Hungary 7 1 2 15 311.5 26.5 122.00 6 5 USA 6 3 1 15 307.0 27.5 120.00 7 14 Germany 6 3 1 15 282.0 25.0 120.00 8 16 Poland 7 1 2 15 259.0 26.0 113.00

The question is of course what happens in case of a match point tie after the final round. To find out we have to look at the FIDE rule book for the Olympiad. Here is the relevant passage:

FIDE G. Tie Breaking 14. The position of teams that finish with the same number of match points shall be determined by application of the following tie-breaking procedures in sequence, proceeding from (a) to (b) to (c) to the extent required: a) the sum of Sonneborn-Berger points, which are calculated as follows: match points of each opponent, excluding the opponent who scored the lowest number of match points, multiplied by the number of game points achieved against this opponent; b) by the number of the game points scored; c) by the sum of the match points of all the teams opponents, excluding the lowest one.

Mathematician (and GM and author and publicist) John Nunn drew our attention to a substantial ambiguity in the above rules, specifically 14.a. "What happens if you have played against two teams, both of which finish with the same number of match points. How do you know which one to exclude? This could make a big difference if you scored 2.5 points against one team and 4 points against the other." We assume the FIDE calculators will have a solution for this case?!

Whatever. So what are the chances of the individual teams. Clearly China, Armenia and Russia are best placed to take the medals. If all three win their matches they will get Gold, Silver and Bronze, most likely in the order they are currently placed. But the tiebreak system is tricky as it depends on several other matches and is a curious mixture of match points and game points. So there are scenarios where things could end differently. And other outcomes apart from straight wins by all three will complicate the matter. Maybe one of our readers can make a spreadsheet to calculate all eventualities.

Team Pairings for the final round – Open

No. SNo Team Pts. MP Res. MP Pts. Team SNo 1 2 Ukraine 26½ 16 17 28½ China 6 2 4 Hungary 26½ 15 17 26½ Armenia 3 3 1 Russia 25½ 17 15 25 Germany 14 4 16 Poland 26 15 15 27½ USA 5 5 29 Argentina 24 14 14 26 Netherlands 9

From the above we see that the Chinese may have the best chances of the three leaders, but they also have the toughest opponents. Ukraine has staged a vigorous comeback after losing to Russia in round eight. They beat France and Azeibaijan in the next two rounds and could prove to be a dangerous opponent for the Chinese team, which only drew the Azeris in round eight.

The Armenians, who overtook the Russians in round ten on TB2 points, also have a dangerous opponent – nominally more so than Russia, although the Germans have been playing very well in this Olympiad and will certainly conclude the event with a fighting round.

Here are the standings in the Women's Section and the pairings for the final round:

Rank after Round 10 – Women

Rnk SNo Women + = – Pts TB2 TB3 TB4 1 1 China 7 3 0 17 357.0 29.0 131.00 2 2 Russia 7 3 0 17 348.0 29.0 126.00 3 4 Ukraine 6 4 0 16 325.0 27.0 127.00 4 14 France 7 1 2 15 294.0 27.5 120.00 5 22 Kazakhstan 6 3 1 15 281.0 27.0 112.00 6 9 Germany 7 1 2 15 277.5 26.5 113.00 7 6 India 7 1 2 15 277.5 25.5 122.00

Team Pairings for the final round - Women

No. SNo Team Pts. MP Res. MP Pts. Team SNo 1 2 Russia 29 17 15 27 Kazakhstan 22 2 13 Bulgaria 26 14 17 29 China 1 3 4 Ukraine 27 16 15 26½ Germany 9 4 14 France 27½ 15 15 25½ India 6

Here we can be fairly sure that China and Russia will share the top medals, most likely in that order, while Ukraine should not be expected to suffer a shock defeat against the Germans. So we will predict Gold for China, Silver for Russia and Bronze for Ukraine, with an outside chance that Germany might steak the third place from their opponents in the final round.

Where to watch the final round

Naturally Playchess.com will be broadcasting the most important final round games live, and with engines running and Let's Check switched on our visitors will be the best-informed spectators on the planet. Video images are provided in high quality by the Turkish organisers, or more specifically by Mark Gluhovsky, the press officer of the Russian Chess Federation, and his team in Istanbul.

Above we see Mark attending to commentator Evgeny Miroshnichenko, who is commenting in a special cabin in the press area of the Olympiad. From Moscow.

In an adjacent room we have the technical staff and Turkish coordinators. Among other things they are relaying broadcasts from a Russian studio in which GM Sergey Shipov is commenting on selected games. The live coverage they produce in the window below will become available as soon as the round starts.

Live video coverage of the Olympiad

Remaining schedule of the Olympiad

There is live commentary of the most interesting games on Playchess.com,

beginning around half an hour after the games have started. 8 September 2012 Free Day 9 September 2011 11.00 11th Round, Closing Daniel King 10 September 2011 Departure

Some hours after the end of each round we will be posting video summaries by Daniel King and Andrew Martin on our news page. If possible they will appear on the same night, otherwise early the next morning.