The fifth round in the women section of the on-going 40th World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey saw the US team suffer a shocking 3-1 loss to Vietnam on Sept. 1.

Vietnamese chess player Pham Le Thao Nguyen with an Elo rating of 2,393 convincingly defeated World’s No. 14 Anna Zatonskih (Elo: 2,512) on the first board after 33 moves of the game.

On the second board, Nguyen Thi Mai Huong, Thao Nguyen’s fellow athlete, lost to Irina Krush (Elo: 2,467).

Nevertheless, two other Vietnamese women Le Kieu Thien Kim (Elo: 2,226) and Pham Bich Ngoc (Elo: 2,172) on the third and fourth boards bested Sabina Foisor (Elo 2,356) and Tatev Abrahamyan (Elo: 2,303) respectively to seal a 3-1 victory against the US team.

After five rounds, the Vietnamese female team is temporarily in 16th place among 127 teams with a total of 13.5 points and will take on Czech Republic in the next round.

Meanwhile, in the Men section, Vietnam held to a 2-2 draw against Georgia and is temporarily ranked 29th out of 150. In the sixth round, Vietnam will compete with Egypt.