Dresden chess olympiad, Round 1

The Chess Olympiad has started in Dresden, Germany and the Malaysian team is seeded 74th in an event that has 144 teams playing. When I looked at the official results here, I noticed that there were 10 teams which were unpaired for the first round. Presumably, I would take it to mean that they have not arrived in Dresden at all.

Anyway, the first round normally throws up little surprises at the top tables but Hungary was held by Iran, France and Montenegro played to a 2-all draw while Latvia and Israel split their points. All these happened at the top 10 tables.

Other than that, in the bottom half of the draw, the results were quite decisive with many matches ended in 4-0 0r 3.5-0.5 results. I observed that the recipients of the zero or half point are usually those weakest teams in the chess olympiad.

Let me see how some of our better known Asian teams fared in the first round:
Vietnam 1.5 - 2.5 Ukraine
China 2.5 - 1.5 Philippines
Hungary 2 - 2 Iran
India 2.5 - 1.5 Canada
Australia 0.5-3.5 Czech Republic
Bangladesh 0.5 - 3.5 Netherlands
Argentina 2.5 - 1.5 Qatar
Uzbekistan 2.5 - 1.5 Indonesia
Palestine 0.5 - 3.5 Kazakhstan
New Zealand 1-3 Trinidad & Tobago
Lithuania 3 - 1 Mongolia
Sri Lanka 1 - 3 Faroe Islands
Malaysia 3.5 - 0.5 Libya
Cyprus 0 - -4 Tajikistan
Turkmenistan 4 - 0 Mauritius
Albania 0.5 - 3.5 Singapore
South Korea 0 - 4 Kyrgyzstan
Hong Kong 0.5 - 3.5 South Africa
Bolivia 3.5 - 0.5 Macau
US Virgin Isles 0 - 4 Iraq
El Salvador 3.5 - 0.5 Fiji
Uruguay 3.5 - 0.5 Papua New Guinea
Monaco 0.5 - 3.5 Pakistan
Thailand 3 - 1 Ethiopia
Chinese Taipei 0 - 4 Wales
Afghanistan 1.5 - 2.5 Japan

Our representatives in Dresden, Round One: (left to right) Mas Hafizulhelmi, Lim Yee Weng, Mok Tze Meng and Jimmy Liew

Seated at Table 38, Malaysia beat Libya 3.5-0.5 in this round:
IM Mas Hafizulhelmi 2439 - Homrana Mustafa 2001 1 - 0
FM Lim Yee-Weng 2396 - Elbaruni Mohamed 2072 1/2
FM Mok Tze-Meng 2308 - Chahrani Ibrahim 2314 1 - 0
IM Liew Chee-Meng-Jimmy 2306 - FM Asabri Hussien 2191 1 - 0

For Round Two, Malaysia is hoisted up to Table 18 where they'll be playing Jersey tonight. Good luck, guys!