The open event at the 42nd Chess Olympiad, organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE), was held from 2–13 September 2016 in Baku, Azerbaijan. It had to be contested by a record number of 180 teams representing 175 nations, however 10 of these did not arrive so the actual participation was 170 teams. Eritrea, Kosovo, and South Sudan all made their debut at the Chess Olympiads. A total of 894 players participated in the open event. The venue of the event was the Baku Crystal Hall.
The United States won the gold medal in the open event for the first time since 1976 and sixth time overall. Ukrainian player Andrei Volokitin, who played as a reserve player, was the best individual player in the open event with 8½ out of 9 points (eight wins and one draw) and a performance rating of 2992. Other players who won individual gold medals include Baadur Jobava of Georgia on board one, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia on board two, Wesley So of the United States on board three, and Laurent Fressinet of France on board four. However, the best scorer at the tournament was 64-year old Eugenio Torre of the Philippines, playing in a record 23rd Olympiad, who scored 10 out of 11 with a performance rating of 2836 and won the bronze medal on board three.
Competition format and calendar The tournament was played in a Swiss system format. The time control for all games was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, after which an additional 30 minutes were granted and increment of 30 seconds per move was applied. Players were permitted to offer a draw at any time. A total of 11 rounds were played, with all teams playing in every round.
In each round, four players from each team faced four players from another team; teams were permitted one reserve player who could be substituted between rounds. The four games were played simultaneously on four boards, scoring 1 game point for a win and ½ game point for a draw. The scores from each game were summed together to determine which team won the round. Winning a round was worth 2 match points, regardless of the game point margin, while drawing a round was worth 1 match point. Teams were ranked in a table based on match points. Tie-breakers for the table were i) the Sonneborn-Berger system; ii) total game points scored; iii) the sum of the match points of the opponents, excluding the lowest one.
Tournament rounds started on 2 September and ended with the final round on 13 September. All rounds started at 15:00 AZST (UTC+5), except for the final round which started at 11:00 AZST (UTC+5). There was one rest day at the tournament, on 7 September after the fifth round.
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Teams and players The tournament featured eight out of the top ten players from the FIDE rating list published in August 2016; only former World Champion Viswanathan Anand and Levon Aronian were missing the Olympiad. Among the players who were playing in the open section were the World Champion and highest rated player in the world Magnus Carlsen, the challenger in the World Chess Championship 2016 Sergey Karjakin as well as the former World Champions Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov. Grandmaster Eugenio Torre was in the line-up of the Philippines for the record twenty-third time, having played on each Chess Olympiad since 1970 except in Dresden in 2008. On the other hand, Ukraine were weaker for Vassily Ivanchuk, who does not play for the first time after 14 consecutive Olympiads (1988-2014) and 13 appearances on board one (1990-2014). The former World Champion Challenger and leader of the Israeli team in 8 consecutive Olympiads (2000-2014) Boris Gelfand was also missing the Olympiad following a conflict with the Israeli Chess Federation management.
The strongest team of the tournament were Russia with an average rating of 2760. Captained by the president of the Russian Chess Federation and FIDE Vice President Andrey Filatov, the team consisted of the World Champion Challenger Sergey Karjakin, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk, Evgeny Tomashevsky and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Seven-time Russian Champion and the fourth highest ranked Russian player Peter Svidler was not included in the team. The United States were the second strongest team with three top ten players, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So, along with Ray Robson and Samuel Shankland. So and Shankland had proved prior to the Olympiad that they were in good form after winning the Sinquefield Cup 2016 and the Biel Chess Festival 2016, respectively. The defending champions China were the third team with highest average rating and the only team besides Russia whose all players had rating higher than 2700. They participated with the same line-up that won the gold medal except for Ni Hua who was replaced by Li Chao. The first team of the three that represented the host country Azerbaijan was the fourth strongest and completed the group with an average rating exceeding 2700 points. The only change in their line-up from the previous Chess Olympiad was Arkadij Naiditsch, a board one player for Germany in four Olympiads, who was playing instead of Gadir Guseinov.
Prizes The winning team in the open event received the International Hamilton-Russell Cup, which was offered by the English magnate Frederick Hamilton-Russell as a prize for the 1st Chess Olympiad and has since been awarded to the best team in the open event.
Media and spectators
The media coverage of the event was allowed upon approval by the FIDE Press Officer. The event was broadcast from a media centre near the playing hall that consisted of working stations and information area equipped with clearly marked notice boards for news and results service. All people with access to the media centre must have received official credentials.
The spectators attending the event were located in a spectator area clearly separated from the playing area. Spectators could also enter the playing hall and watch the matches directly without disturbing the players. The media staff members entering the playing hall were also considered spectators with exceptions applied to their activities as media personnel.
The transmission of games on video equipment or demonstration boards with or without commentary could take place only from rooms located inside the playing hall. Press conferences took place in special rooms. All players were obliged to take part at the press-conference or give interviews for the official website upon request of the FIDE Press Officer, while all winners and medalists were obliged to attend the final press conference on the day after the event had ended and provide an exclusive interview for the FIDE website.
Rounds
Round 1
The results in the first round generally reflected the huge rating disparities between the paired teams, the majority of the higher rated teams scoring perfect 4-0 results even without their top players. Several other top teams conceded a single draw, winning by 3½-½ margins. The world's top four players, Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana and Vladimir Kramnik, all did not play in the opening round. Norway showed signs of frailty after conceding two draws against Wales to win 3–1, while Serbia beat Trinidad and Tobago by the same margin following GM Nikola Sedlak's upset loss to Kevin Cupid. The biggest surprise of the first round, however, was Bulgaria's draw against Sudan. Veselin Topalov and Krasimir Rusev won their games with the White pieces but Momchil Nikolov and Martin Petrov lost with the Black pieces. On the lower boards, the team from South Sudan impressed in their Olympiad debut against the Faeroe Islands, scoring an upset win on board 3 and a near-upset on board 1 despite a minimal budget, no coach, and little apparent knowledge of opening theory.
There was a larger than usual number of no-shows in the first round, particularly among the African teams. Several teams were unable to field the required three players and forfeited all four games; these were Malawi, Cameroon, Mali, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burundi, Senegal, Gambia, Congo, Djibouti, Lesotho and Mexico (who thereby lost to the much lower-rated Ivory Coast). Teams who had informed the organizers that their players had not arrived were not paired; these were Angola, Madagascar, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Eritrea, and Central African Republic. A few teams arrived with only three players, gifting their opponents a point; Russia's fourth board Alexander Grischuk won in this fashion against Nigeria, as did Spain's David Antón Guijarro against Syria. Some of these teams later arrived, often with only three players; by the first rest day 10 teams had still not arrived, for a total participation of 170 teams.
One of the best games of the day was Wei Yi's win on board four to help China score a 4–0 victory against the first-time entrants Kosovo. In the game, he sacrificed a piece in the opening for an overwhelming compensation that enabled him to finish the game in 19 moves (see diagram).
Round 2
There was a number of stiff matches with closer fight and more balanced opposition in the second round, although top seeded teams continued scoring high victories. In general, all teams with higher average rating playing on the first 28 tables met their Elo expectations and defeated their opponents. Russia, Azerbaijan, Poland and India scored perfect victories against Turkmenistan, Macedonia, United Arab Emirates and Costa Rica, respectively. The United States and China dropped half point, because American Sam Shankland critically blundered in his game against the Scot Colin McNab but somehow managed to survive and Chinese Wei Yi played a game with many oscillations against Belgian Nicola Capone that seemed he might have lost but ended in a draw. England faced difficulties in narrowly beating Indonesia 2½-1½ after Luke McShane lost to Irwanto Sadikin and Michael Adams drew his 166-move game against Muhammad Lutfi Ali. The game could have been won for Adams had he spotted a nice combination including an underpromotion on move 137 (see diagram). The matches between Iran and Georgia, Slovakia and Greece, and Mongolia and Finland were all tied.
It was also the round in which the top four players on the FIDE rating list make their debut: Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana and Vladimir Kramnik. Out of them, only Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was held to a draw to Irish grandmaster Alexander Baburin but France still managed to defeat Ireland convincingly by 3½-½. Carlsen opened his game with the move 1. e3!? but brought the game to a winning position with an overwhelming attack before any material was sacrificed and helped Norway beat Bangladesh minimally by 2½-1½. Caruana faced a Four Knights Game with 4. Be2, an opening that he has never seen before, but at the end still won the thrilling game against Andrew Greet of Scotland.
The issue with the incomplete pairing was handed down from the first to the second round and 14 African teams remained unpaired, meaning that the total number of teams actually playing was 166 instead of 180 as expected, which was 10 less than at the previous Chess Olympiad.
Round 3