2010 Chess Olympiad: Round 5, San Marino 2.5 – 1.5 Ghana

In the fifth round Kees was rested and Kojo Bonsu played instead. This round saw Nii Koney post his first win at the Olympiad.

Grassi, Enrico - Anquandah, Francis Eric, 1-0
Anquandah employed the Scandinavian Defense for the second time in the tournament. Both players castled long and the game was balanced until Grassi won a pawn in the middle game. He created a passed pawn later in the endgame and went on to win.

Nii Koney - Cecchetti, Roberto , 1-0
It was all Nii Koney in this encounter, putting a lot of pressure on his opponent with an early attack on his opponent´s King. The attack was rewarded with the win of a piece and Black never stood a chance after that. Congrats Nii!

Righi, Ezio - Thompson, Edward Nii Lamptey, 0.5-0.5
This was an interesting game where Thompson employed the Berlin Defense and had some counterplay on the Kingside. After piece exchanges the game went into the endgame where it was Thompson´s Knight versus Righi´s Bishop. Eventually, the game was drawn in 68 moves with Thompson having two connected passed pawns on his opponent´s third rank.

Kojo Bonsu - Volpinari, Danilo, 0-1
Kojo Bonsu enjoyed a good spacial advantage for most part of this game. Volpinari played the Benko Gambit but Kojo neutralized the pressure on the queenside and obtained a good position. However his position slipped after a blunder on move 46.

Ghana plays the U.S Virgin Islands in round 6.