The 42nd Chess Olympiad starts tomorrow in Baku, Azerbaijan. This is the premier event in team chess, held every two years, and the Azeris seem to have spared no expense in organising it.

The men's event is too close to call. China are the defending champions, with their hero from last time out, Yu Yangyi, barely making it into the starting squad ahead of wunderkind Wei Yi. Russia are once again top seeds, but have not won since 2002. The Azeris, strengthened by the arrival of Arkadij Naiditsch on board 5, will hope to make their home advantage count. Most interestingly for many on this forum, the US have acquired two of the top 10 players on the planet, Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana, to join Hikaru Nakamura, putting them in with a great chance to win gold for the first time since 1976 when the USSR boycotted the Olympiad. On that note it's unfortunate that Armenia, who have won three of the last five events but are involved in a border dispute with Azerbaijan, declined to play. So no Levon Aronian this year. Anand, Svidler, and Gelfand are the only others missing from the top 20.

Slightly further down, Ukraine would be among the favourites but they will be missing everyone's favourite eccentric genius, Vassily Ivanchuk. Having won Olympic gold with both the USSR and the Ukraine, he's reportedly decided to play an amateur draughts (checkers) event instead. France will also be hoping to be among the medals, headed by the world's form player, and the only one who can save the world from the Berlin Defence, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Further down the rankings there are plenty more exciting teams but my pick to cause an upset (and make BJJ weak at the knees) is 45th seed Iran. That team features 4 teenagers whose names you don't know yet - but see Maghsoodloo's ridiculous performance in the Stars Cup - led by old man Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, 33.

In the women's event China are the clear rating favourites due to Hou Yifan's position, still 75 points clear of world #2, her teammate Wenjun Ju. Russia, Ukraine and Georgia have well rounded squads slightly lower rated and I expect only one of those will miss out on the medals. Slightly further down are the two Azerbaijan teams, each led by a Mamedyarov sister. Their men's top player is their brother Shakhriyar, surely the first time this has happened at an Olympiad.

The games are at 15:00 local time which I think is 12pm London time, 7am New York. There will be commentary on the usual sites - looks like chess24 will have Illescas and Miroshnichenko commentating, at least in the early rounds.

Finally, Yorkshire Chess are running a Fantasy Chess Olympiad competition. Free to enter, some small prizes and should give you some rooting interest throughout the competition. It's a bit too late to organise a 2p2 league for it but if you see this before the round starts, I'd encourage you to enter it anyway.

Nice OP! And I did enter the fantasy thing, btw. Curious to see if I was remotely on point or if I had too much FPS...

23 fantasy points in round 1. Eight played, seven of them won (but only one with black). The loss was fine, it's a weak board one player on a very weak team; she was outclassed today but her job is to mop up the late rounds. I feel pretty decent overall about that start but don't know for sure. My expectations for fantasy chess aren't yet calibrated.

9 of mine played and all won, though only one with Black, for 28 points. I got very lucky in that one, the last one remaining - Helgi Dam Ziska was first totally lost, then escaped to an ending where he at least had no winning chances, then won against his 1900-rated South Sudanese opponent.

In other news of players being unable to convert massive advantages against higher rated players, my team Ireland briefly looked like they might get something from their women's match with the much stronger Spain. Youngster Alice O'Gorman (1800) had a winning position an exchange and a pawn up for very little counterplay against her IM strength opponent, and the other games also looked promising. Unfortunately experience triumphed and Spain soon 4-0.

Today will be a second day of mismatches. Most interesting to me, my clubmates face each other in Ireland-France in the open competition.

My fantasy team:

Strong players on weaker teams are the most valuable in this format, so it's definitely ok to drop a few points in the early rounds.

Sweet fantasy stuff RoundTower

My team:

I've got 9 playing this round, but Foisor is sitting out again, and I'm not loving that she's my fifth board in the women's section. +2=1-1 so far with five games in play. Two of the in-play games include big ratings edges but the other three my players are all slight ratings underdogs. Definitely didn't land perfect matchups.

All 10 of mine played today scoring 8/10. Shankland let me down a bit dropping half a point but Ziska got it back by drawing with Topalov. I also suffered from the shock result of the day, Georgian women losing to the Filipinas, rated more than 300 points below.

My fantasy team is a disaster, so let's talk about Iran!

As a team they've lost just four individual games through seven rounds. Seeded #46, they're in the top ten of the overall standings, with another winnable match coming up against Italy. Good form tomorrow could put them in the top five with only three rounds left! Cinderella baby!

Perfect timing on the weekend, with the really big showdown tomorrow - Russia vs America on board 1 in both the women's and the mens.

A draw and a surprising win for the Women.

cross thread quote:

that game is going to be one sexy hamburger.

Is there an easy way to look at analysed games? I wanna watch Carlsen and the Scandi from today

A little love for the unheralded Canadians (not even mentioned in the OP) who I suspect will be on board 1 vs the Americans tomorrow. Two North American teams on board one in the last round of the Olympiad is not something I think would have ever been expected.

USA#1

Although almost #2? Chess needs to fix their tie-break systems. Almost no tournament has anything that makes any sense.

Tiebreaks suck. Welcome to the chess world.

USA #1

Absolutely agog that curtains hasn't come here to complain about the tiebreak system yet.

Yes, tiebreaks do suck but USA deserves #1 as they had beaten Ukraine in the match.

How about this simple tiebreak:

2 match draws > 1 match loss

My line of thinking: going undefeated should count for something.

The Americans got gold, adding to their country's numerous gold medals won a few months ago in Rio. International Olympic Committee recognizes chess as an Olympic sport, so these gold medals at the Olympiad count.