Eight Teams Still Perfect After Four Rounds in Samarkand

Four rounds into the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, the field of unbeaten teams has finally started to thin. In the Open section, FIDE reported that China, host nation Uzbekistan, Germany, Armenia, the USA, India, the Netherlands and Hungary all won their fourth straight match and remain perfect. In the Women’s section, India, Kazakhstan, China and the USA lead a larger group still boasting flawless records.

The round began with a minute of silence for Georgios Makropoulos, the longstanding FIDE figure and former Deputy President who helped bring two Olympiads to his native Thessaloniki in 1984 and 1988.

It was also a day of scale: the late arrival of the Marshall Islands pushed the Open section to a record 206 teams, while the Women’s section held steady at 189, a milestone that coincided with a visit from Uzbekistan’s Prime Minister, Abdulla Aripov.

That record field builds on the tournament’s already-historic size, which had already broken Budapest’s previous mark before this round even started.

The day’s standout tactic came from China’s Wei Yi, who improved to 3/3 by beating Aleksandar Indjic in a game FIDE’s report called something it had “never seen before.” With Black under pressure but not obviously lost, Wei Yi broke through with 32.Nxf7! Rxf7, then 33.Ne6!, forking the queen off its square.

What followed was a genuine oddity: after 33…Qb8, Wei Yi played 34.Bg3! Qa8 35.Nc7!, repeating the queen-harassment pattern described as a “windmill” aimed not at a king, but at the queen itself. After 35…Qb8 36.Nxd5 Qa8 37.Nc7 Qb8 38.Bc4, Indjic’s position had collapsed, and he resigned six moves later. China beat Serbia 3-1 on the back of it.

Uzbekistan’s win over Türkiye was tighter on paper, a 2.5-1.5 scoreline, but decided by one board. With three draws split across boards one, two and four, it fell to Nodirbek Yakubboev on board three, who emerged from the opening with a clear advantage his teammates spotted immediately and converted for the full point.

India’s 3-1 win over Spain carried more edge than the score suggests. Praggnanandhaa drew on board one and India held board three with Black, before Arjun Erigaisi and world champion Gukesh D delivered attacking wins to seal the match.

Notably, Gukesh is playing board four for India, a reflection of just how deep India’s bench has grown. Erigaisi’s opponent, Maksim Chigaev, reportedly complained to both captains afterward, though the result stood.

The United States needed a rescue act against Ukraine. Levon Aronian fell into serious early trouble against European champion Roman Dehtiarov, but clawed back with what FIDE described as a remarkable positional queen sacrifice to win the game outright. Hans Niemann drew, Wesley So notched his third straight win, and Fabiano Caruana ground down veteran Vasyl Ivanchuk to seal the match for the Americans.

Chess.com singled out Aronian’s turnaround as its own Game of the Day, and the final scoreline undersells how one-sided the match became once he’d escaped trouble: 3.5-0.5, the most lopsided result among the day’s unbeaten-vs-unbeaten pairings.

The U.S. matched that scoreline almost exactly in the Women’s section, sweeping its own top-board match by the identical 3.5-0.5 margin. Two matching blowout wins in the same round put the Americans among the day’s most convincing performers across both sections.

The Netherlands, often overlooked early in team events, moved into the leading pack with a win over Greece, powered by Anish Giri’s fourth consecutive victory. Along with Armenia, Germany and Hungary, the Dutch will occupy the top boards in Friday’s pairings, four teams that have quietly matched the record fields of China, Uzbekistan, the USA and India without dropping a single match point yet.

Round four’s calm at the top is itself notable given how the tournament had played out before it. Earlier rounds had already produced their share of shocks, from Argentina’s win over Ukraine as a 28th seed to El Salvador’s stunning upset of Cuba.

India losing Erigaisi on board one while its bench carried the team through fit the same pattern. None of that repeated itself this time, but with this many teams still unbeaten, the pairings only get harder from here.

Round five pairings will start pitting these unbeaten sides directly against each other, the first real test of which of the eight perfect Open teams can actually survive contact with one another.

Open standings after Round 4 of 11

#	Team	W–D–L	Match Points	Board Points
1	China	4–0–0	8	13.5
2	Uzbekistan	4–0–0	8	13
3	Germany	4–0–0	8	12.5
4	Armenia	4–0–0	8	12.5
5	India	4–0–0	8	11.5
6	USA	4–0–0	8	12
7	Netherlands	4–0–0	8	11
8	Hungary	4–0–0	8	10
9	France	3–1–0	7	13
10	Azerbaijan	3–1–0	7	12

Women standings after Round 4 of 11

#	Team	W–D–L	Match Points	Board Points
1	USA	4–0–0	8	15
2	China	4–0–0	8	14
3	Poland	4–0–0	8	14
4	Uzbekistan	4–0–0	8	14
5	Bulgaria	4–0–0	8	14
6	Germany	4–0–0	8	12.5
7	India	4–0–0	8	14
8	Azerbaijan	4–0–0	8	13
9	Kazakhstan	4–0–0	8	13.5
10	Serbia	4–0–0	8	14