Ben's Blog: U.S. wins silver in Bursa

The U.S. Team won the silver medals today at the World Team Championships in Bursa, Turkey, by drawing their match with Azerbaijan in the last round, as all four boards were drawn.

This is an amazing result for the U.S. team, especially with the absence of Gata Kamsky from the team.

Russia won the gold, and the surprising late entry India won the bronze after a devastating 3.5-0.5 victory over hapless Brazil. I will post the individual scores of our team below:

Hikaru Nakamura: 6 out of 8
Alexander Onischuk: 6.5 out of 9
Yury Shulman: 2.5 out of 7
Varuzhan Akobian: 4.5 out of 8
Robert Hess: 1 out of 2
Ray Robson: 1 out of 2

All of our team members played their hearts out, and Hikaru and Alexander had the most points and best rating performances on boards 1 and 2!

A fantastic result for our team, and thanks must go out to Rex Sinquefield for sponsoring the team, Tony Rich, our Chess Club's executive director, for going to Turkey and taking hundreds of pics, writing reports for our site and the U.S. Chess Federation site, and supporting our team, and to Team Captain IM John Donaldson.  It was a great team effort.