JOIN USIndian men and women’s team cruised to an identical 4-0 victory over Wales and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) respectively, in the first round of the 40th Chess Olympiad now underway here at Wow Hotel and Convention centre.
The Indian think-tank rested mainstay Sasikiran as P Harikrishna, Parimarjan Negi, Abhijeet Gupta and GN Gopal delivered the goods on all boards against Wales’ counterpart Richard Joneslost, Tim Kett, Richard Dineley and Lolo Jones respectively to start on a positive note.
In the women’s event being held simultaneously, the Indian women’s team also matched the men with a fine all round performance on all boards.
Playing black, D Harika did not give many chances to Bojana Bejatovic on the top board while on the second Eesha Karavade had it easy against Monika Stojkovska.
Former Asian champion Tania Sachdev also stood her ground against Dragana Nikolovska while on the fourth board Soumya Swaminathan completed the rout outclassing Simona Lakinska.
There were no major surprises as all top teams notched a maximum of two match points out of the first round. However there were individual casualties which are common in the opening round.
Important and Indian results (Round I): Open: Dominican Republic (0.5) lt to Russia (3.5); Ukraine (4) bt Iraq (0); Bolivia (1) lt to Armenia (3); Hungary (3) bt Kyrgyzstan (1); Jordan (0) lt to USA (4); Luxembourg (0) lt to Azerbaijan (4); France (4) bt Zimbabwe (0).
Women: China (4) bt Bangladesh (0); Bolivia (0) lt to Russia (4); Georgia (4) bt Guatemala (0).