[section_title title=”Introduction”]
Round 1 is scheduled to start today.
As is the usual case with the Swiss system, in Round 1 the top seed gets to face the middle seeded player/team. Thus, the higher half of the tournament participants in terms of their seed number are usually pitted against the much lower rated/seeded player/team in the first round.
We expect not much tension yet in Round 1.
![The Baku 2016 Chess Olympiad playing hall. Photo courtesy of Chess Daily News.](http://chesshive.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/baku-2016-playing-hall.jpg)
The Baku 2016 Chess Olympiad playing hall. Photo courtesy of Chess Daily News.
As such, let’s check out the team pairings in the pages that follow.