Chess Olympiad: Indian men crush Azerbaijan, women beat Kazakhstan

BUDAPEST: Backed by the two in-form stars in World Championship challenger D Gukesh and Arjun Erigaise, the Indian men scored the necessary 2.5 points out of possible three against Azerbaijan in the fifth round of the 45th Chess Olympiad here on Sunday.

It seems like Gukesh and Arjun can do nothing wrong in this Olympiad as they overpowered Aydin Sulemanli and Rauf Mamedov respectively with their white pieces in quick time.

Praggnanandhaa played another draw on board two but that only ensured an Indian victory irrespective of the result of Vidit Gujrathi who was playing against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

After scoring the fifth victory on the trot, the Indian men maintained a clean slate on ten points and they were joined by Vietnam who continued with their impressive show and downed Poland 2.5-1.5.

The other two teams that remained on course to enter the leaders’ pack were China and Hungary who seemed poised for a 2.5-1.5 victory.

In the women’s section, Grandmaster D Harika suffered a shock defeat to give Kazakhstan an early lead. Better for most of the game, Harika misplayed after many pundits believed her position to be winning against Bibisara Assaubayeva.

On the fourth board Vantika Agarwal yet again played the anchor and won a clean game with white pieces against Alua Nurman while Xeniya Balabayeva split the point with Divya Deshmukh.

Grandmaster R Vaishali was just close to getting a second win and the match for Indian and was just a few moves away from attaining that.

Team India will likely join Armenia and Mongolia in the lead on 10 points.