Round 1 matches of 44th Chess Olympiad begin

CHENNAI: The much-awaited tournament of the Chess Olympiad began with 3 matches at 3pm on Friday.

Under open section in the first match of round 1, India 1 is facing Zimbabwe. In the next one, India 3 is facing South Sudan and India 2 is facing United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, local lad R Praggnanandhaa has been rested for India Open 'B' team's opener against the UAE. The edition, which has attracted a record 188 teams in the Open section and 162 in the women's, would also see six from India in the fray. India. as the host, could field two teams and got to field an additional team in each section as the number of entries were odd.

Players:

India 1: Vidit Santhosh Gujarathi, Arjun Erigasi, Narayanan SL and Sasikiran Krishnan

India 2: Gukesh D, Nihal Sarin, Adhiban B, Raunak Sadhwani

India 3: Sethuraman SP, Abhijeet Gupta, Karthikeyan Murali, Abhimanyu Puranik