US Chess Team unable to crack Israel in 5th Round of Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018

Things got excited early on in the 5th Round of the Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018 when Fabiano Caruana won early at Board 1 against Boris Gelfand.

And then it was followed by a nice save by Hikaru Nakamura at board 3 who was on time pressure but still was able to draw against Tamir Nabaty.

Hikaru's time here is seen to be only 55 seconds as against Tamir's more than 7 minutes. And he is seen shaking his head here. Luckily for him, he was able to steer the position to a drawish one.

At this point, GM Shankland playing at board 4 in this round for the US is already lost, thus on the shoulders of GM Wesley So rest the chance of the US Team to win this round against Israel.

Wesley played on and tried so hard but was unable to make headway against GM Rodshtein at board 2.

This position actually got me excited. This is after the 31st move by Wesley where he played Rd7. Wesley So have a slight edge here.

However, Rodshtein was able to hold and the game resulted in a draw. Final position is shown below.

IM Sopiko Guramishvili (wife of GM Anish Giri) actually predicted a win by the US Chess Team courtesy of Wesley if he is able to convert. But GM Ivan Sokolov accurately predicted that the match between the US and Israel would result to a 2-2 draw which is what happened, image below shows.

Despited the 2-2 result against Israel, I am still happy for the US Chess Team because it could have gone worst. Remember we have Hikaru Nakamura in time pressure but was able to save this game with a draw.

I am hoping that team USA bounces back with a big win in Round 6 to catch up with the other teams.