MAMALLAPURAM: The No. 2 seeds Ukraine did a favour to the top seed Indian women's team at the Chess Olympiad on Tuesday. They could only draw their fifth-round match against Azerbaijan 2-2 and helped India narrow the leaderboard with six more Swiss League rounds remaining.
The 8-team overnight lead is now reduced to just three teams with Georgia and Romania giving company to India on 10 match-points. The situation in the Open section is even more remarkable with only two leaders: India B and Armenia.
The shocker in the women's Ukraine vs Azerbaijan matchup came on the fourth board on the 12th move itself when IM Nataliya Buska of Ukraine gave a meaningless check instead of stopping the 'h6' pawn from doing further damage against WGM Ulviyya Fataliyeva.
The Ukrainian's position just crumbled thereafter.
Though 27 more moves were played, the result was never in question. The only silver lining - besides the gain for India - was Fataliyeva inflicting a pretty checkmate on Buska - via a disguised check as her knight, bishop and rook invaded the rival territory.
Buska must have continued to play in the lost position only with the hope of a counter-blunder which never came. GM Mariya Muzhuchuk's win on the top board thus went in vain as Ukraine failed to beat the sixth seeds.
World champion Magnus Carlsen (Elo 2864) also gave a checkmate to his Zambian opponent Gillan Bawlya (2396) in just 26 moves of the Saemisch Deferred variation of the Nimzo Indian defence.
Uzbekistan's world junior champion Nodirebak Abdusattorv needed one more move than Carlsen to humble Slovakia's Jergus Pechck as they won 4-0.
Vincent Keymer, a 17-year-old GM playing for Germany on the top board, also won with black pieces. The win came in a Mocow variation against Slovenia's Jan Subelj after 59 moves with two black queens on the board as Germany won 3-1.
Though USA escaped to win against Israel 2-5-1. 5 with a full point on the fourth board, Fabiano Caruana's (Elo 2783) ordinary run continued with a draw against Avital Boruchowsky (2551).
The second-best player in the tournament is yet to win with a defeat and three draws.
