Samarkand (Uzbekistan), Sep 17 (PTI) Defending champions in both the open and women’s events, the Indian teams won their matches — albeit with some hiccups — to remain atop the leaderboard with four match points after the second round of the 46th Chess Olympiad here on Thursday.
For the second day running, Nihal Sarin was the difference between two teams as he defeated Hafiz Arif Abdul after briefly missing out on a tactical trick. Up against a Sicilian with white pieces, Nihal went for a direct attack against the black king but for just one move his own king came under serious trouble.
However, as it happened, Hafiz missed on the trick and landed his king in deep trouble with many pieces still remaining on the board. Nihal wrapped up the issues quickly thereafter.
Reigning world champion D Gukesh continued to struggle as he was held to a draw by Satria Duta Cahaya who played black. Gukesh could not get his pieces rolling for once and even though the complications remained, Cahaya remained on course by matching the world champion move-for-move.
The game was drawn through perpetual checks leaving India with a 2-1 score with only Praggnanandhaa fighting it out on the top board for a victory.
Even though he tried hard, Praggnanandhaa was not able to find a dent in the position of Susanto Megaranto, who played very solidly with white. With some great high effort, the Indian was able to reach a rook and pawns endgame with an extra pawn, but the resulting position was just a theoretical draw. The peace was signed in 79 moves.
For the top seeded United States, it was a similar result against Mongolia as they too won by a 2.5-1.5 margin while the local team Uzbekistan, winner in 2022, won with a handsome 3.5-0.5 margin against Peru.
In the women’s section, the Indians did better as World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh started off with a victory over Johanna Paasikangas in her maiden appearance here on the second board.
Vantika Agrawal won her second game on the trot, defeating Sara-Olivia Sippola on the third board, while B Savitha Shri continued to impress defeating Helja Lehtinen. With the scoreline reading 3-0 in India’s favour, R Vaishali played out a draw with Anastasia Keinanen.
Open: Indonesia vs India (Susanto Megaranto vs R Praggnanandhaa; Hafiz Arif Abdul lost to Nihal Sarin; Satria Duta Cahaya vs D Gukesh; Nayaka Budhidharma drew with Vidit Santosh Gujrathi).
Women: Finland lost to India (Anastasia Keinanen drew with R Vaishali; Johanna Paasikangas lost to Divya Deshmukh; Sara-Olivia Sippola lost to Vantika Agrawal; Helja Lehtinen lost to B Savitha Shri). PTI Cor AH AH
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