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.