Indian men shock Azerbaijan in the Chess Olympiad

The Indian team in the open section on Tuesday handed over an handsome defeat to the host Azerbaijan in the fifth round of the World Chess Olympiad held at Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

The Indian team won 3-1 with World No 16 Grandmaster P. Harikrishna made a quick work to win against GM Mamedyarov in 34 moves on the top board.

While Indian GMs B. Adhiban and S.P. Sethuraman split points with their opponents, GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi won against GM Naiditsch in just 37 moves.

Gujrathi has a perfect score of winning all the five games he had played till now. Interestingly this is his first Chess Olympiad.

On the other hand, the Indian womens drew their match against much lower-rated Vietnam 2-2.

On the top board World No.5 Indian GM Harika Dronavalli and on the fourth board WGM Soumya Swaminathan drew their games against their Vietnamese opponents.

But in the other two boards it was mixed results for India with International Master Tania Sachdev suffering her first defeat in the tournament.

After suffering a loss in the fourth round, Indian IM Padmini Rout bounced back defeating her Vietnamese opponent.

The biennial World Chess Olympiad is an 11-round Swiss open, with one rest day on September 7. The open section features 181 teams from 176 countries, with the 899 players.

--IANS

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