Round 1 in numbers

Those decisive rates are the story of the round. Nine games in ten were won by somebody in the Open, and in the Women's section it was more like 39 in 40. The forfeits are a first-round thing too: sixteen boards in the Open had nobody sitting at them, mostly teams still travelling.

The checkmate column is the one I did not expect. 98 games in the Women's section ended in mate on the board against 23 in the Open. Stronger players resign, and the further down the pairings you go, the more often somebody plays it out to the end. Whether that gap survives the week is something to watch.

Seventy-three teams in the Open won all four boards, and eighty-five did in the Women's section. That is 158 whitewashes in one afternoon, and it is the last time the tournament will be this lopsided.

China had the best of it. Against opponents averaging 2178 their four boards came to a team performance of 2578, the highest of the round. Ding Liren beat Patrick Kawuma of Uganda on board 1 in 33 moves. Replay

Nigeria played the longest match of the day, 263 moves over four boards, and the bloodiest, 93 captures. Palau were done in 93 moves between them, one board in 15. Two teams, the same afternoon, playing quite different games.

Homayoun Mohtaat of Afghanistan is rated 1928 and untitled. He had White against Khumoyun Begmuratov of Uzbekistan, rated 2514, and won in 40 moves. That is 586 rating points the wrong way round, and the biggest upset of the round in either section. Replay

Edmond Meng Zhang of Hong Kong, 1896, drew with Casper Schoppen of the Netherlands, 2582, in 43. The site calls a draw across a gap like that David vs Goliath, and 686 points is the widest one of the day. Replay

In the Women's section Kothar Al Mamary of Oman, 1587 and untitled, held a WGM rated 2074. Replay

Anish Giri played 10. Bb5 against Niilo Nissinen and put two bishops on b5 and e5 with two enemy pawns between them. That shape is called an Il Vaticano, it happened once all day, and Giri won the game. Replay

Ismet Mesic built the other rare shape: four pawns on f4, g4, f5 and g5 after 23. g4, which the site calls a Pawn Cube. Replay Carla Heredia Serrano of Ecuador made a Pawn Diamond, pawns on c4, b5, d5 and c6, on move 9. Replay

On board 1 of the whole Open, Sauat Nurgaliyev of Kazakhstan promoted to a rook rather than a queen, 53... exf1=R+, and won. Four underpromotions across both sections. Replay

Pia Cramling castled long with check on move 15. The site calls that a Shahrukh, after the story that Timur named his son after the king-and-rook move he had just played. Replay

The two fastest mates of the day were both 12 moves long, and both were against a Fyfield-Jones of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Gabriella Watson of Jamaica finished hers with the queen. Replay

1. 8
2. 7
3. 6
4. 5
5. 4
6. 3
7. 2
8. 1

1. a
2. b
3. c
4. d
5. e
6. f
7. g
8. h

Iwan Cave of Wales mated in the same number of moves with Black. Replay

At the other end, Mlik Omar of Senegal and David Smerdon of Australia played 89 moves, 68 of them in an endgame that began on move 22. Omar's knights made 33 moves between them, the most of the round. Replay

Julia Lebel-Arias of Monaco was born in 1944 and is 82. She had Black against Melissa Moura of São Tomé and Príncipe, born in 2009, and won in 29 moves. Sixty-five years between them, the widest gap of the round. Replay

Four ten-year-olds played, all born in 2016, three of them in the Women's section. Vedant Shetty of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines lost his first Olympiad game in 37 moves to a 2098, which is a respectable way to start. Replay

Lichess analyses every finished broadcast game on its own servers, and by the evening 99.7% of Open moves and 99.6% of Women's moves had an evaluation. So the accuracy and blunder numbers here are Lichess's, not mine. Relay clocks are chaos, so the script looks for the jump where the 30-minute bonus actually lands instead of trusting move 40. Ties are shown instead of broken, and every award links to the exact move.

One thing this round taught me about forfeits. Twenty-two boards were scored without a game, sixteen of them in the Open, which is more than the rest of the week put together. They count for the standings and they stay out of everything about the moves, because there were none. A team that arrives on the second day has not played a 0-move game; it has not played.

Round 2 tomorrow, and the pairings tighten from here. Every round gets its own page with its awards, and there are team standings with the official tie-breaks. The site is unofficial and not affiliated with FIDE, the organisers or Lichess.

Got an idea for an award? Lichess comments and the r/chess round thread both reach me.

And thanks to the Lichess broadcast team. Without the relay, none of this exists.