Eight Teams Qualify to Exciting Knockout Stage of Asian Online Nations Cup

The all-GM Iranian team leads 8 qualifying teams into the exciting knockout phase of the Asian Online Nations Cup Open Chess Team Championship. Iran, headed by GM Pouya Idani (in photo above), topped the 9-round Swiss system preliminaries with 15 match points despite losing to Mongolia 1.5-2.5 in Sunday’s last round.

Mongolia and the Philippines share second slot with 14 match points followed by Australia with 13 match points. The Philippines beat Kyrgyzstan 3:1 to eliminate them from the KO phase while Australia drew 2:2 with top seed India.

The Philippine team is composed of, below from left, GM Mark Paragua, GM Rogelio Barcenilla, IM Paulo Bersamina, GM John Paul Gomez and IM Haridas Pascua.

The Mongolian team is composed of FM Amartuvshin Ganzong, GM Bilguum Sumiya, GM Batchuluun Tsegmed, IM Gan-Erdene Sugar and IM Batsuren Dambausuren.

Completing the magic eight are Indonesia, India, Kazakhstan and Singapore with 12 match points each.

The all GM Indian team is composed of, below from left, B. Adhiban, Nihal Sarin, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, S.P. Sethuraman and Krishnan Sasikiran.

The Indonesian team is composed of, in photo below from left, IM Yoseph Taher, GM Susanto Megaranto, IM Novendra Priasmoro and Azarya Jodi Setyak.

The Singapore team is composed of, below from left, GM Kevin Goh, GM Bong Villamayor, IM Tin Jingyao, IM Hsu Li Yang and IM Liu Xianyi.

See photos of Kazakhstan and Iranian teams. See photos of Australian team.

Visit chess-results.com for final standings of Preliminaries. Quarterfinals pairings pit Iran vs. Singapore, Kazakhstan vs. Philippines, Mongolia vs. India and Indonesia vs. Australia. The first named in the pairing has white on boards 1 and 3 and black on boards 2 and 4.

Hostilities start 10am on Friday, 23^rd October on Chess.com. Here are links to follow their live games: