Chess Olympiad: Indian open team beats Egypt, Women draw against Georgia-1

Indian team in the open section after some labouring won against the lower ranked Egypt 2.5:1.5 in the 43rd World Chess Olympiad at Georgia.

With two wins, one draw and one loss, the Indian team managed to beat Egypt 2.5:1.5.

The Indian women drew with Georgia-1 team 2-2.

The two wins were contributed by P. Harikrishna and K. Sasikiran on the second and fourth boards, and on the top board former World Champion Viswanathan Anand.

Playing on the second board, Harikrishna gained positional advantage early in the game and sustained the pressure on Ahmed Adly to score India's first win in the round in 42 moves.

With this victory, Harikrishna broke the last three rounds of draw spell.

Similarly, Sasikiran did not face much problem against Adelrahman Hesham on the fourth board to score a full point after 56 moves.

On the top board, former World Champion Viswanathan Anand having first-mover advantage with white pieces drew against lower rated Bassem Amin in 35 moves.

This is Anand's second consecutive draw in the Olympiad.

It was young Vidit Santosh Gujrathi playing white who went down in 56 moves against Adham Fawzy.

The other major results are: Poland drew with Azerbaijan, the USA beat Croatia, China drew with Ukraine and Czech Republic drew with Israel.

In the women's section, Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev and Padmini Rout drew their games against Georgia-1 team.

For Sachdev, this is the first draw in the six rounds she had played after winning all the previous five games.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

--IANS

vj/nir