The Vietnamese men’s team have slumped to 33th place in the standings at the Chess Olympiad in Russia despite not losing any of their last four rounds.
The No 27 seeds were held to a 2-2 draw in the tenth round Friday by 56th ranked Montenegro.
All four players Dao Thien Hai (Elo rating 2,520), Le Quang Liem (2,694), Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (2,633) and Nguyen Duc Hoa (2,385) produced ties with Dragisa Blagojevic (2,481), Nikola Djukic (2,475), Milan Drasko (2,486) and Blazo Kalezic (2,449).
In the ninth round Thursday, Vietnam had been held to a 2-2 draw by 41st ranked Kazakhstan. Hai beat Anuar Ismagambetov (2,492) but Son lost to Rinat Jumabayev (2,547). Liem and Nguyen Anh Dung (2,500) tied with Murtas Kazhgaleyev (2,620) and Kirill Kuderinov (2,481).
Earlier Vietnam had also held Greece, the No 25 seeds, and 42nd ranked Germany to draws in the seventh and eighth rounds.
The team had climbed to third place after winning all four opening rounds before losing the next two to drop to 22nd out of 148 teams.
Ukraine are top of the table with 29 points, followed by Russia 1, Israel, Poland, and Hungary. Russia have five teams in the tournament.
At the last Olympiad in Germany in 2008, Vietnam had finished ninth out of 154 teams.
In the women’s section, Vietnam, the seed No 24, are in 12th place out of 114 teams, with seven wins and three losses.
