Indian men hold top seed Chinese in Asian Nation Chess

On a day when Krishnan Sasikiran struggled and lost to Wang Hao on the top board and Parimarjan Negi went down to Ding Liren, Harikrishna provided the early stabiliser by crushing Wang Yue on the second board while Gupta defeated Yu Yangyi to restore parity.

After the eventful draw that was fought till the last nail, the second seeded Indian men remained in joint lead along with China-1 and 2 and Iran on five match points out of a possible six.

The Indian eves also did well to beat Vietnam by a 3-1 margin in the women's championship being organised simultaneously.

 

The first two boards were draws as D Harika and Tania Sachdev played solidly but on the last two boards, national women's champion Mary Ann Gomes and Padmini Rout did the damage for the Vietnamese with fine performance yielding victories.

China-1 continued to annihilate opposition here and on the receiving end in the third round was none other than the second best Chinese team.

China-1, led by Zhao Xue on the top board cruised to a 3-1 victory to maintain an all-win record.

The Iranian eves follow the Chinese a half point behind with six rounds still to come in the round-robin championship between 10 teams, while the Indian women are now joint third on four points.

Harikrishna was the pick of the Indians on a tough day. He is enjoying the King pawn opening a lot off-late and he stuck to his guns against Wang Yue. MORE