Eight Teams Still Perfect After Round Four
By Cameron W. · Sun, 20 Sep 2026
Round four in Samarkand didn't produce a single upset among the tournament's top boards, but it did settle into a genuinely crowded picture at the summit: eight teams remain unbeaten after four rounds, and the day's best individual story came from a player who, by rights, should have lost.
Round four in Samarkand didn't produce a single upset among the tournament's top boards, but it did settle into a genuinely crowded picture at the summit: eight teams remain unbeaten after four rounds, and the day's best individual story came from a player who, by rights, should have lost.The United States makes the loudest statement of the dayTeam USA delivered the round's most emphatic result, beating Ukraine 3.5-0.5 in a match it didn't strictly need to win by that margin to stay perfect. Fabiano Caruana beat Vasyl Ivanchuk, in for Igor Kovalenko, on board one, while Wesley So added another win of his own. Hans Niemann settled for a draw against Ihor Samunenkov, the only half-point Ukraine managed all afternoon.Aronian's escape actThe individual highlight of the round belonged to Levon Aronian, who was clearly losing against 18-year-old European Champion Roman Dehtiarov before turning the game around completely to win outright, the kind of reversal that tends to get singled out as the day's best game regardless of how many other results are on the board. It's the second time this Olympiad cycle Aronian has pulled off a genuine escape act, following a similar rescue earlier at the Sinquefield Cup, and it's becoming something of a signature for him this year.China matches the Americans stride for strideChina posted an equally dominant 3.5-0.5 scoreline of its own, keeping pace with the Americans at the top of the standings. Between the two results, round four was less about any single upset and more about the gap continuing to widen between the tournament's genuine contenders and everyone chasing them.The standings after four roundsEight teams remain unbeaten with perfect 8 match points: China, Uzbekistan, Germany, Armenia, India, the United States, Netherlands, and Hungary, with China holding the tiebreak edge at the top of the table for now. It's a broader group of leaders than many expected this deep into the tournament, spanning three different continents and including both the host nation and the two-time reigning champion.What it means heading into round fiveWith no separation yet between eight legitimate contenders, round five is likely to be the point where the standings actually start to thin out, either through a genuine head-to-head between two of the leaders or another round of comfortable wins that simply delays the reckoning by a day. Either way, the tournament's real shape still hasn't fully revealed itself four rounds in.