MAMALLAPURAM: All eyes were on the India vs India match on Friday as the 44th Chess Olympiad returned after a day’s break. And the higher-ranked India 1 justified their billing beating India 3 in the seventh round.
For the winners, young gun Arjun Erigaisi and SL Narayanan bagged full points against Abhijeet Gupta and Abhimanyu Puranik respectively. P Harikrishna and Vidit Gujrathi drew their clashes against Surya Shekhar Ganguly and SP Sethuraman as the match ended 3-1 in favour of the favourites.
The win left India 1 in fourth spot while India 3 are lagging behind at 25th. However, India 2, who won their match against Cuba, are in third spot.
Arjun was clinical in his 46-move win over Abhijeet. The 18-year-old is on 5.5 points from 7 rounds after his fourth win of the tournament. Narayanan, on the other hand, is on 4 points from 5 outings after his 38-move victory against Abhimanyu. GM Srinath Narayanan, the India 1 team captain, said his side went into the encounter with an attacking mindset. “We were confident before the match and looked to fight in all the games. I think that kind of explains the score-line,” Srinath said after the match.
Despite India 1 staying unbeaten in the competition, Srinath isn’t ready to speak about podium finish yet. “I think it’s a bit early to think about it. That comes into play only in the last two rounds. It is nice to get this win right after the rest day against a strong team. It is nice to have such a convincing win going into the last few rounds,” he said.
India 1, interestingly, benched K Sasikiran and went in with Narayanan. “Sasi had a bit of a bad game against Uzbekistan in the previous round. We thought it would be good to give him a break before coming back,” Srinath pointed out.
India 2, in the open category, looked untroubled in their 3.5-0.5 win over Cuba. D Gukesh continued his run with his 7th successive triumph. The 16-year-old cruised past Carlos Albornoz Cabrera while others to win for the hosts include Nihal Sarin and R Praggnanandhaa. Nihal defeated Perez Quesada while Praggu returned to winning ways against Suarez Ortiz. Praggu had lost his last game against Jaime Santos Latasa. B Adhiban, meanwhile, drew against Omar Quintana Almeida.
Tania and Vaishali save the day for India 1 women:
Tania Sachdev and R Vaishali have been in great form right from the start of the tournament. The two played a part in India 1 women defeating Azerbaijan 2.5-1.5. Tania beat Ulviyya Fataliyeva in an encounter that lasted 63 moves while Vaishali got the better of Govhar Beydullayeva. Koneru Humpy went down to Gunay Mammadzada, while D Harika drew with Khanim Balajayeva. “I was a pawn up after the 40th move. Once I saw Humpy lose her match, I had no option but to keep playing. I would like to thank Boris Gelfand (team mentor) because we had worked on the exact position during our training camp,” Vaishali said after the match.
India 2 didn’t have the best of days as they went down to Greece 2.5-1.5. For the hosts, Divya Deshmukh (beat Haritomeni Markantonaki) and Mary Ann Gomes (drew with Ekaterini Pavlidou) were the only players to bag points for their side. Vantika Agrawal and Soumya Swaminathan were off-colour in their losses to Stavroula Tsolakidou and Anastasia Avramidou.
India 3 notched up a 3-1 win over Switzerland. The victories for the hosts came via Eesha Karavade and PV Nandhidhaa against Lena Georgescu and Ghazal Hakimifard respectively. B Pratyusha and Vishwa Vasnawala drew against Gundula Heinetz and Laura Stoeri.
