2016 Chess Olympiad - Round 10

The USA and Ukraine continue to lead the 2016 Chess Olympiad with one round to play. The USA holds a slight lead on tiebreak and play neighbours Canada in the last round. Ukraine play Slovenia so I suspect there will be eyes on both matches from each of the teams. Russia has fallen a further point back and are now on 16 points. They play Italy, and would hope to win that match to make sure of a podium finish.
Australia had a tough match against France in round 10, with David Smerdon playing world number 2, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The French team proved too strong, winning 3-1, but a draw by IM Anton Smirnov kept his undefeated Olympiad streak going. In the last round they play The Philippines, and as the higher seeded team will be looking for a match win and a potential top 20 placing.
New Zealand had a narrow 1.5-2.5 loss to the Dominican Republic, but a win by FM Scott Wastney keeps his chances of an IM norm alive, although he needs a win in the final match against Uganda
PNG scored their first match win (played) of the tournament, beating Swaziland 3-1. The match was notable for one of the quickest wins of this Olympiad, when Rupert Jones' opponent resigned after 6 minutes of play. He played a line that was made famous by Anand losing in 6 moves to Granda Zapata, but rather than just drop a piece his opponent chucked his queen instead. Stuart Fancy had a nice attacking win, while Helmut Marko found a nice tactic in the opening before converting his extra pawns into a win.
Fiji's 4-0 win over Palau in round 9 came back to bite them after they lost to Ethiopia by the same score (there seemed to be a lot of those back to back results this year). Guam did well to take 1.5 points of the higher seeded Brunei, while Palau got blanked for the second time in a row, by a justifiably pleased Bermuda team.
The wheels have come off the Australian women's team, losing to a much lower ranked Indonesia 1-3. The only bright spot was Jiang Nguyen's save on board 2. New Zealand have now moved ahead of Australia in the Women's Olympiad after a 3-1 win over the ICCD team. Guam moved to 6 points with a win over Ghana, while Fiji lost to the twitter trending Ugandan team 0.3-3.5


Jones,Rupert (1851) - Hlophe Smilo (1592)
Baku Chess Olympiad | Open chess24.com (10.2), 12.09.2016

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Bf5 6. Qe2 Qe7 7. Nd5 c6 8. Nxe7 1-0