The 41st Chess Olympiad (, ), organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the men's division, this section is open to all male and female players. and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, was an international team chess event that took place in Tromsø, Norway, between 1–14 August 2014. The organiser was Chess Olympiad Tromsø 2014 AS on behalf of FIDE.

A total number of 1,570 players participated at the Olympiad, with 881 in the men and 689 in the women's section.Tromso Chess Olympiad Men LIVE!, Chessdom.com, 29 July 2014.Tromso Chess Olympiad Women LIVE!, Chessdom.com, 29 July 2014. The number of participating teams was 177 from 172 countries in the open section and 136 from 131 countries in the women's section. The main competitive events were held at Mackhallen. The Chief Arbiter of the event was Greece's International Arbiter Panagiotis Nikolopoulos.Tromso Chess Olympiad: Officials and Match Arbiters , FIDE, 23 May 2014. The reigning World Champion, Norwegian Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, was one of the eight official ambassadors. He also played as a member of one of the Norwegian teams.

China won the open section of the tournament for the first time, while Russia claimed victory in the women's section for the third consecutive time as well as third time overall. Chinese Yu Yangyi, playing on board three, and Georgian Nana Dzagnidze, playing on board one, were the most successful players in the open and women's section, respectively.Tromso Final, ChessBase, 14 August 2014. The event was also the last competitive tournament for Judit Polgár, the strongest female chess player in history,Sources citing Polgár as by far the strongest female chess player of all time: note: The Associated Press story on Aug.17/18, 2003 on the Polgár–Anand match explicitly refers to Polgár with the words "by far the strongest woman chess player ever" note: explicitly uses "by far": "By far the strongest female player of all timer".

Malcolm Pein, British IM and Executive Editor of CHESS magazine, when speaking of A. Kosteniuk's victory over Hou Yifan for the Women's World Championship, said "Currently Judit Polgár is in another league from any other female player."

Kavalek, GM in the top 100 players for 26 years, called Polgár, "the all-time best female player" Panolfini, chess author and coach, writes "Judit Polgár is simply the strongest female chess player in history." The January 1996 FIDE ratings list was a landmark as Polgár's 2675 rating made her the No. 10 ranked player in the world, the only woman ever to enter the world's Top Ten. who announced her retirement from competitive chess in the rest day of the Olympiad.Queen who exposed the arrogance of kings, The Times, 13 August 2014.Judit Polgar to retire from professional chess, The Week in Chess, 13 August 2014.Judit Polgar to retire from competitive chess, ChessBase, 13 August 2014. Playing as a reserve player for Hungary in the open section, she won a silver medal with her team and recorded four wins, one loss and one draw for a total score 4½/6.

Preparations

There were two cities bidding to host the event: Albena and Tromsø. The bidding procedure, which was held in 2010 in Khanty-Mansiysk, lasted several days; in the end the Norwegians won by a 95–47 vote.

In May 2014, it was announced that the budget for the Olympiad would need 15 million NOK extra. The Norwegians also had to organise the Chess World Cup 2013 but did not take into account the cost for this event, in the amount of €2 million. The organisers requested additional funding for the Olympiad apart from the 75 million NOK that were already secured, but the Norwegian government did not approve it. Then, they sought sponsorships to cover the unanticipated expenses, and managed to attract private sponsors.Peter Doggers: Tromsø Olympiad in Trouble?, Chess.com, 14 May 2014. In June 2014, the Norwegian parliament approved an additional 12 million NOK for staging the event, whereupon the organisers confirmed that the Chess Olympiad would take place in Tromsø.Peter Doggers: Tromsø Olympiad Saved, Receives Extra State Funding , Chess.com, 5 June 2014.

The administrative director of Chess Olympiad Tromsø 2014 AS was Børge Robertsen. Chairman of the board was Henrik Andenæs, but later he was replaced by Herman Kristoffersen. There were eight ambassadors of the Olympiad: the reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen; former World Champion Anatoly Karpov; former Women's World Champions Susan Polgar and Alexandra Kosteniuk; Woman Grandmaster Melanie Ohme; the historian, crime author, chess player and organiser, and politician Hans Olav Lahlum; former footballer Sigurd Rushfeldt; and the adventurer and journalist Lars Monsen.

The playing venue was Mackhallen, which is situated in downtown Tromsø. Mackhallen is the former site of the world's most northerly brewery, Mack Brewery, dating back to 1877.

The event

Competition format and calendar The tournament was played in a Swiss system format. The time control for all games was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, after which an additional 30 minutes were granted and increment of 30 seconds per move was applied. Players were permitted to offer a draw at any time. A total of 11 rounds were played, with all teams playing in every round.

In each round, four players from each team faced four players from another team; teams were permitted one reserve player who could be substituted between rounds. The four games were played simultaneously on four boards, scoring 1 game point for a win and ½ game point for a draw. The scores from each game were summed together to determine which team won the round. Winning a round was worth 2 match points, regardless of the game point margin, while drawing a round was worth 1 match point. Teams were ranked in a table based on match points. Tie-breakers for the table were i) the Sonneborn-Berger system; ii) total game points scored; iii) the sum of the match points of the opponents, excluding the lowest one.

The opening ceremony of the Chess Olympiad was held at 19:30 CEST (UTC+2) on 1 August and the closing ceremony was held at 20:00 CEST (UTC+2) on 14 August. Tournament rounds started on 2 August and ended with the final round on 14 August. All rounds started at 14:00 CEST (UTC+2), except for the first and the final round which started at 15:00 CEST (UTC+2) and 11:00 CEST (UTC+2), respectively. There were two rest days at the tournament, the first one on 7 August after the fifth round and the second one on 13 August before the final round. In addition, the Arbiters meeting took place at 21:30 CEST (UTC+2) on 1 August and the Captains meeting at 09:00 CEST (UTC+2) on 2 August.

All dates are CEST (UTC+2)

OCOpening ceremonyAArbiters meetingCCaptains meeting1RoundRDRest dayCCClosing ceremony

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Open event

The open section of the tournament was contested by a record number of 177 teams representing 172 nations. Norway, as host nation, fielded three teams, whilst the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA), the International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPCA), and the International Chess Committee of the Deaf (ICCD) each provided one team.

Players who participated at the Olympiad included the reigning World Champion and highest rated player in the world Magnus Carlsen, nine of the top ten players from the FIDE rating list published in July 2014, and four former World Champions. The former World Champion Vishwanathan Anand, who was the challenger in the World Chess Championship 2014, was the only player from the top ten who missed the Olympiad. The highest rated female chess player, Judit Polgár, represented Hungary in the open section. However, not all of the teams submitted their strongest line-ups for the Olympiad. China, who were expected to be one of the strongest teams in the tournament, were represented by only two players rated above 2700. Russia were the strongest team in the open section with an average rating of 2777 points, followed by Ukraine with 2722 and France, led by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, with 2718. Other teams with average ratings higher than 2700 rating points were Armenia, with the World no. 2 Levon Aronian, playing on the top board, the United States, and Hungary.Tromso 2014: Preview and preparations, ChessBase, 27 July 2014.

China won their first gold in the open event and remained the only unbeaten team in the tournament. They scored eight wins and three draws for a total of 19 points, finishing two points clear of the opposition. Second place was shared by four teams on 17 points: Hungary, India, Russia and Azerbaijan. Hungary won the tie-breaker for second place to claim the silver medal, and India ranked third to win the bronze medal. Russia, who were once again clear favourites before the tournament, finished in fourth place. Armenia, the defending champions from the previous Chess Olympiad, scored 16 points to finish in eighth place.China and Russia claim gold!, official website, 14 August 2014.

+ Open event # Country Players Averagerating MP dSB1 Wang Yue, Ding Liren, Yu Yangyi, Ni Hua, Wei Yi 2699 19 2 Lékó, Balogh, Almási, Rapport, Polgár 2703 17 372.03 Negi, Sethuraman, Sasikiran, Adhiban, Lalith Babu 2631 17 371.5 4 Kramnik, Grischuk, Svidler, Karjakin, Nepomniachtchi 2773 17 352.0 5 Mamedyarov, Radjabov, Mamedov, Safarli, Guseinov 2694 17 345.0 6 Ivanchuk, Ponomariov, Eljanov, Korobov, Moiseenko 2723 16 377.5 7 Dominguez, Bruzón, Quezada, Ortiz, Gonzalez 2629 16 361.0 8 Aronian, Sargissian, Movsesian, Akopian, Kotanjian 2705 16 350.5 9 Gelfand, Rodshtein, Smirin, Sutovsky, Postny 2683 16 348.0 10 Vallejo, Guijarro, Salgado, Illescas, Vázquez 2640 16 334.5

Notes

Average ratings calculated by chess-results.com based on August 2014 ratings; Chessbase's preview article was written in July.

All board prizes were given out according to performance ratings. Yu Yangyi on the third board had the best performance of all players in the tournament:

Board 1: Veselin Topalov 2872 Board 2: Nguyễn Ngọc Trường Sơn 2843 Board 3: Yu Yangyi 2912 Board 4: Nikola Sedlak 2773 Reserve: Sam Shankland 2831

Women's event

The women's event was contested by 136 teams representing 131 nations. Norway, as host nation, fielded three teams, whilst the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA), the International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPCA), and the International Chess Committee of the Deaf (ICCD) each provided one team.