In the final of the World Team Chess Championship in Jerusalem, the surprise winner was the Chinese team, after winning both matches against Uzbekistan, the champions from the Chennai Chess Olympiad.

In the battle for the bronze medals, at the time of writing, Spain and India headed into a blitz play-off after the first two matches were tied, but in the end, Spain pulled the longest straw and secured the win.

In relative terms, the veteran but lower-rated Chinese team of “unknowns” demonstrated that not having any of their top eight players taking part in the event was not going to stop them from showing just how good they are in this format and taking down the young sensational Uzbeks gold winners from the Chennai Olympiad. 

This is a Flash Report—a full report will follow.

All the games

The FIDE World Team Championship takes place November 19-26, 2022, in Jerusalem, Israel. The format is a round-robin for teams with five rounds, followed by a knockout with the top eight finishers. The time control is 45 minutes for the entire game plus a 10-second increment starting on move one.

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