USA, Brain Drain Team Coming

Soviet ancestors

The interesting thing about the team of Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Lenier Dominguez, Levon Arunjan and Ray Robson is that none of the three chess players were born in America: he is from the Philippines, Dominguez is from Cuba, and Arunjan is American-born. Moreover, he is an Armenian, a three-time Olympic champion with Armenian colors.

American chess is like the American flag: it is always marked by a brain drain. It is worth noting that almost twenty years ago, at the 2004 Chess Olympiad, the United States took fourth place with all former Soviet chess players (Onischuk, Shabalov, Goldin, Kaidanov, Novikov, Gulko). By comparison, there is now at least one American on the team, Ray Robson, who is the highest paid.

What can we count on against the Americans?

All the members of the band are excellent masters, but – especially Dominguez and Arunjan – they seem to be past the peak of their careers. In refutation of this, Arunjan scored six and a half points out of seven sides. True, he is now only in the fourth board, and at that time he always led the Armenians as a major player.

And what can we trust? Well, first of all, you have to consider that the Americans are playing lightly on boards one and three, and we are on boards two and four. Richard Rapport is unlikely to pull the strings against Caruana on black, although he also beat Ivanchuk on black, and Peter Leko may try to win.

Chess Olympiad Group 1 standings before round 9 Men:
1. India 16 points, 2. Uzbekistan 14, 3. Hungary 14, 4. China 13, 5. USA 13, 6. Iran 13.
Top 9 matches: India – Uzbekistan, USA – Hungary, China – Iran.

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