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From formidable to virtually invincible.
That’s the transformation the United States chess team underwent following the addition of Levon Aronian to its roster of Super Grandmasters.
The Armenian ace switched federations last week and Wesley So, a pillar of Team USA, readily opened the door for him.
The Filipino-born So welcomed Aronian in a Facebook post on Wednesday, March 3, where he described his fellow chess whiz as a “a very nice person as well as a great chess player.”
“I was once the new guy and I know how hard it is to be that,” said So. “I believe in serious competition and having Levon around will push us all to be stronger and fight harder!”
Now, Team USA can field a lineup composed of 5 of the current 20 highest-rated players.
World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana will man the top board, No. 5 Aronian will hold board 2, joint 8th and 9th So will play board 3, while Leinier Dominguez and Hikaru Nakamura, ranked 15th and 18th, respectively, can alternate at board 4.
This US roster outranks the probable best teams of top rivals Russia and China and is very capable of duplicating Team USA’s triumph in the 2016 Baku (Azerbaijan) Olympiad.
The US players then were Caruana, Nakamura, So, who won the board 3 gold medal, Sam Shankland, and Ray Robson.
China narrowly won the 2018 Batumi (Georgia) Olympiad, besting the US and Russia in the tiebreaker.
The 2020 Chess Olympiad supposed to be held in Moscow got canceled owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and as a substitute, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) held its first Online Olympiad. Russia and India were declared co-champions following a technical glitch in the finals.
Russia’s strongest team possible thus far is composed of world No. 4 Ian Nepomniachtchi, No. 6 Alexander Grischuk, No. 16 Serjey Karjakin, No. 24 Dmitry Andrekin, and No. 26 Nikita Vitiugov.
China’s best squad will be made up of world No. 3 Ding Liren, No. 12 Wang Hao, No. 20 Wei Yi, No. 33 Yu Yangyi, and No. 35 Bu Xiangzhi.
India will be ranked 4th with former world champion and now No. 17 Viswanathan Anand, No. 21 Pentala Harikrishna, No. 23 Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, No. 63 B. Adhiban, and Krishnan Sasikiran in the fold.
The addition of Aronian, a six-time world title challenger, makes Team USA truly universal as the parents of Miami-born Caruana are Italians, Dominguez hails from Cuba, and Nakamura’s father is Japanese. – Rappler.com
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