Budapest, Sep 15: Grandmaster Arjun Erigaise scored his fourth victory on the trot and gave India an early lead in the match against Serbia in the fourth round of the ongoing 45th Chess Olympiad here.
After R Praggnanandhaa deicded to split the point early against Alexey Sarana who played black, much was left to Arjun to deliver the goods given his recent great form. The world number four did not disappoint his fans or team mates and played a perfect counter attacking game against Indjic Aleksandar to inch closer to the 2800 rating barrier.
Grandmasters Vidit Gujrathi and D Gukesh enjoyed undeniable advantage against Evic Velimir and Alexandr Predke respectively keeping the team in contention for another fine 3.5-0.5 triumph.
In the women’s section, however, there was a lot of struggle on all four boards.
Top rated Indian D Harika used her experience and was close to winning against her French rival Deimante Daulyte-Cornett while Tania Sachdev fought on and capitalized on her opponent’s time pressure to win from a level endgame.
R Vaishali drew her game earlier against Sophie Millet of France while Mitra Hejazipour and Divya Deshmukh were still locked in a topsy-turvy game that saw the fortune changing hands a few times.
Earlier in the third round, Indian men dropped their first point, but carried enough steam to beat Hungary ‘B’ 3.5-0.5 to maintain a clean slate in the tournament.
In the open section, the hero for the Indian men was Arjun who played a brilliant attacking game against Peter Prohazska and ended with a checkmate after a queen sacrifice.
However, Gujrathi had to settle for a quick draw against Papp Gabor and it was the first time an Indian men’s player failed to notch a win in this event.
But Gukesh outclassed Adam Kozak, while Praggnanandhaa made most of his chances in the endgame as Tamas Banusz was gradually outplayed.
In the women’s section, a shock defeat for Harika on the top board did not deter the other Indians as R Vaishali, Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agarwal scored crushing victories to ensure a 3-1 victory for the team that kept them in joint lead on six match points.
Harika lost to recent-migrant Alexandra Kosteniuk who gave up her Russian citizenship and joined the Swiss team.
A former world women’s champion Kosteniuk was in her elements and scored the full point after Harika misplayed the middle game that appeared even from the bird’s eye-view.
Vaishali gave no chances to other migrant Ghazal Hakimifard who left her Iranian citizenship.
It was a bit of a technical game from the white pieces as Ghazal made some unforced errors and did not quite recover.
Divya continued with her winning ways and clearly the Indian seemed to be having the time of her life on the chessboard.
After recently winning the world junior girls’ championship, Divya scored a regulation win against Sofiia Hryzlova while on the fourth board Vantika proved much stronger than Mariia Manko.(PTI)
