2016 Chess Olympiad - Day 3

The third round of the Olympiad is where teams start to find a level, and even smaller teams start to score some points. In some cases it is due to playing a team quite close in seeding, in other, a fighting performance from a team member or two.
Of course this does not always apply, as PNG realised when the round 3 pairings were published. Belgium was normally a team we would play in Round 1 (as in 2004) and we were heavily outrated on all boards. While the final result was 0-4 (as expected), FM Rupert Jones did put a good fight against his IM opponent. Fiji gained their first math point finishing 2-2 with Guyana. Guam had an even more impressive result, beating San Marino 2.5-1.5, to notch their first match win of the tournament. On the other hand Palau is still sitting at the bottom of the table, suffering their third 0-4 defeat in a row, this time to Hong Kong.
Australia had a big win over Barbados 3.5-0.5. Anton Smirnov scored his third win in a row, and as a result Australia now play Norway, with a Smerdon v Carlsen game a distinct possibility.New Zealand went down to a narrow defeat to Denmark 1.5-2.5, which was good effort against an all GM team that outrated them by around 200 points on every board.
In the Women's section Australia is still bouncing around in the draw, having gone 4-0, 0-4, and 4-0 (over Aruba) to start the event. The bounce continues in round 4 with a match against 7th seed Poland. The New Zealand Women's team scored a 2.5-1.5 win over Netherland Antilles, Fiji lost 1-3 to Trinidad and Tobago, while Guam scored 1.5 points against Chinese Taipei.


Jones,Rupert (1851) - Vandenbussche,Thibaut (2401)
Baku Chess Olympiad | Open chess24.com (3.2), 04.09.2016