Indian men outplay Costa Rica in Chess Olympiad

The Indian chess teams -- open and women -- continued their winning streak in the second round of the World Chess Olympiad held at Baku, Azerbaijan wiping out Costa Rica and Brazil respectively.

However, the day was marred with the shocking defeat of India's World No.5 Grandmaster (GM) Harika Dronavalli at the hands of his lower rated Brazilian opponent.

In the open section, the 11th seeded Indian men's team scored full points against Costa Rica with GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi winning first in 32 moves.

After that, GMs B. Adhiban, S.P. Sethuraman and Karthikeyan Murali overcame their lower rated opponents without much problem.

But while the men's team scored full points it was not so with the Indian eves.

On the top board, World No.5 Indian Grandmaster (GM) Harika Dronavalli suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of her Brazilian opponent Woman International Master (WIM) Juliana Sayumi Terao after a marathon 74 moves.

The other Indian women players -- Women's Grand Master (WGM) Soumya Swaminathan, Women's International Master (WIM) Pratyusha Bodda and Tania Sachdev -- also won their respective games.

The fifth seeded Indian women's team won the round 3-1.

Before the start of the tournament a chess coach had told IANS that the Indian women's team though seeded fifth generally finds itself in difficulty even against low rated teams.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted as v.jagannathan@ians.in)

--IANS

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