Chess Olympiad: Arjun Erigaisi scores his sixth straight win; Indian women beat Armenia

BUDAPEST: World number four Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi registered his sixth victory in as many games as the Indian team was poised to score its sixth straight win in the ongoing 45th Chess Olympiad here on Monday.

Erigaisi scored over Russian-turned-Hungarian Sjugirov Sanan on what turned out to be a hard-fought day for the Indian men in the sixth round.

On the top board, D Gukesh played out an easy draw as black against top Hungarian Richard Rapport. Erigaisi won against Sanan Sjugirov while Praggnanandhaa decided to sign peace with former great Peter Leko.

With Vidit Gujrathi set to score a victory over Benjamin Gledura, the Indian men were poised to win by a 3-1 margin which will also make them the sole leaders in the event as China were held to a draw by a spirited Vietnamese team that scored another great 2-2 result.

In the women’s section, Divya Deshmukh scored the much-needed victory over Elena Danielian to help India gain an early lead against Armenia.

D Harika played out a draw with Lilit Mkrtchian on the first board while R Vaishali followed suite against Mariyam Mkrtchyan.

With the team leading by 2-1 margin, Tania Sachdev played it safe from a position of strength and played out a draw on the fourth board with Anna Sargasyan to help India win 2.5-1.5.