{"id":2149,"date":"2026-09-22T08:38:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T08:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2026\/09\/22\/uzbekistan-leads-sarin-queen-blunder-india-women-beat-usa\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T08:38:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T08:38:43","slug":"uzbekistan-leads-sarin-queen-blunder-india-women-beat-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2026\/09\/22\/uzbekistan-leads-sarin-queen-blunder-india-women-beat-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Uzbekistan Leads After Sarin\u2019s Queen Blunder; India Women Beat USA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"9fece8afa224fd09e54b043d0febfb58\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- NR ATF -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8898941184964366\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4839033563\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>Uzbekistan emerged as the sole leader of the Open section of the 46th Chess Olympiad after six rounds, thanks to a decisive victory on board three against India. Grandmaster Nihal Sarin, who had the better position and more time on his clock, miscalculated and surrendered his queen with roughly thirty minutes remaining. The blunder handed Nodirbek Yakubboev the win and secured the match for Uzbekistan, putting the team at twelve match points \u2013 the highest total after round six.<\/p>\n<h2>Open Section: Uzbekistan Takes Lead<\/h2>\n<p>The decisive board three game unfolded under intense time pressure. Yakubboev, who described the encounter as \u201cvery, very emotional,\u201d noted that he was in time trouble when Sarin accelerated the clock. A missed tactical shot on move 37 (\u2026Nf5??) allowed Sarin to deliver the striking 38.Ne6!!, a move that forced Black to give up the queen and was later highlighted as the tournament\u2019s most spectacular turn. Yakubboev\u2019s victory was celebrated by his teammates, who greeted him as a hero on social media.<\/p>\n<p>Germany, the only other team that had maintained a perfect score, fell to China 3\u20111 in the same round. Ding Liren defeated Vincent Keymer on board one, while Xu Xiangyu outplayed Alexander Donchenko on board four. The remaining boards resulted in draws, leaving China one point behind Uzbekistan. Armenia also matched China\u2019s tally after a 2.5\u20111.5 win over Iran, keeping the top three teams tightly clustered.<\/p>\n<p>Other notable Open matches included England\u2019s narrow win over France, secured by Michael Adams\u2019s board\u2011two victory, and the United States\u2019 redemption win over Norway, where Hans Niemann\u2019s decisive blow on move 68 turned a tense endgame into a 2.5\u20111.5 match win. Turkey\u2019s young prodigy Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus staged a comeback against Swiss Grandmaster Sebastian Bogner, turning a two\u2011pawn deficit into a win with less than a minute left.<\/p>\n<p>The Netherlands recorded a 4\u20110 sweep against Israel, but the result came by forfeit after Israel requested a night\u2011time replay following Yom Kippur. The Dutch team declined, receiving two match points. The forfeit sparked debate, with Grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen warning that such outcomes could distort tiebreak calculations for medal contenders. Israel\u2019s federation later received a FIDE letter confirming that its schedule would be adjusted, and its CEO Gil Borochovsky criticized FIDE for not mitigating the impact on rankings.<\/p>\n<h2>Women\u2019s Section: China and Kazakhstan Remain Perfect; India Bounces Back<\/h2>\n<p>In the Women\u2019s Olympiad, China and Kazakhstan continued their flawless runs, each holding a perfect 12\u2011point score after six rounds. Their perfect records gave them a two\u2011point cushion over an eleven\u2011team pack still vying for medals. China\u2019s dominance was evident in a 3.5\u20110.5 victory over Poland, a match in which Poland\u2019s Aleksandra Maltsevskaya fell into a sharp position against 20\u2011year\u2011old IM Song Yuxin, and the remaining Polish players struggled in difficult endgames.<\/p>\n<p>Kazakhstan secured its perfect tally through a 2.5\u20111.5 win over Azerbaijan, highlighted by a single win from IM Alua Nurman. The Chinese team achieved its sweep without the presence of former world champions Hou Yifan, Ju Wenjun, Lei Tingjie, or Tan Zhongyi, relying instead on the performances of top\u2011rated players Zhu Jiner and Bibisara Assaubayeva. Both faced challenging openings but managed to hold draws, while their teammates collected the decisive points.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s women\u2019s team rebounded from an earlier setback with a crucial 3\u20111 victory over the United States. IM Savitha Shri and IM Vantika Agrawal each secured wins, providing the margin needed to keep India in medal contention. Second\u2011seeded Georgia also returned to the hunt after defeating host Uzbekistan 3.5\u20110.5, joining India and other leaders on ten points.<\/p>\n<h2>Controversies, Upcoming Rounds and Outlook<\/h2>\n<p>The next round, scheduled for Wednesday, September 23, will see Uzbekistan face China in the Open section, a clash that could determine the ultimate medalists. In the Women\u2019s section, China and Kazakhstan, the only unbeaten teams, are slated to meet each other, a match that promises to further shape the top of the leaderboard.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the headline matches, the Olympiad featured a series of tightly contested encounters. Armenia\u2019s Gabriel Sargissian clinched the match\u2011winning point against Iran\u2019s Reza Mahdavi on board four, while England\u2019s Gawain Maroroa Jones suffered a loss on board three that was offset by Adams\u2019s win. The tournament also highlighted the depth of talent across nations, with young grandmasters such as Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Gukesh Dommaraju, and Javokhir Sindarov holding their own in heavy\u2011piece endgames against experienced opponents.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the 46th Chess Olympiad has delivered dramatic swings, flawless performances, and a few contentious moments. As the competition moves into its final stages, the battle for gold remains wide open, with Uzbekistan, China, Armenia, and a resurgent Indian contingent all poised to make a final push for the podium.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Uzbekistan seized sole lead in the Open section of the 46th Chess Olympiad after GM Nihal Sarin blundered his queen, while India&#8217;s women&#8217;s team rallied to defeat the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[299],"tags":[470,2125,216,2296,2206],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chess","tag-chess-olympiad","tag-india","tag-uzbekistan","tag-womens-chess","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}