Thanks to a resurgent Abhijit Kunte and Surya Shekhar Ganguly, the Indian men cruised to a 3-1 victory over The Philippines in the third round of the 36th Chess Olympiad at the Gran Casino in Mallorca on Sunday.
The Ukrainians look like men with a mission and in the third round too they continued with their demolition act to score 4-0 victory over the Czech Republic.
Incidentally, this was Ukraine's third such victory on the trot in the event and they are now sole leaders with a cent percent score.
The Indian men took their tally to nine points after beating The Philippines. It turned out to be a good day for Kunte, who scored a valuable point with black pieces for his team against International Master Emmanuel Senador.
Playing the Berlin defence, Abhijit was pleasantly surprised as his opponent went for the closed setup and duly punished a rather sluggish attack later in the middle game.
Seeing that complexities did not work much in his favour, Senador went for the queen and minor piece endgame with one pawn less but found Abhijit's technical handling perfect too. The game lasted 46 moves.
Ganguly who had tremendous success in the previous edition of the Olympiad, at Bled in Slovenia, scored over Grandmaster-in-waiting Mark Paragua in a Sicilian Nazdorf game.
Playing white, Ganguly, who had beaten Paragua in their last three meetings too, calculated perfectly in a dangerous looking endgame and his efforts paid off well. However, in the later stages of the middle game, Paragua had this one chance of equalising that he missed which proved costly.
"He could have drawn but that was certainly because I wanted to finish matters quickly after getting a slight advantage; in the end it turned out well," said Ganguly.
The top boards were drawn by Indians but not without interesting battles.
With Viswanathan Anand opting out for the second time in three days, Sasikiran took charge of the top board and had a better position to boast off against veteran Eugene Torre from a Nimzo Indian defence game where the latter played black.
Going for the kill a little too early, Sasikiran erred with a pawn advance in the centre and it was Torre in fact who took charge of the proceedings for a brief moment. However, resourceful play by Sasikiran ensured that complexities remained and Torre settled forced a draw after opting for an opposite colour Bishops endgame.
Harikrishna, like Kunte, went for the Berlin variation against Rogelio Antonio and also faced the closed set up and the latter played solidly to maintain the balance right till the very end. The peace was signed in just 26 moves.
Indian eves record third straight win
Putting up yet another fine show, the Indian women's team downed Bulgaria 2-1 for its third straight victory.
Silver medallist in last two Olympiads, S Vijayalakshmi, provided the winner for the Indians after both Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika drew their games in the third round of the competition on Sunday.
Top seed and defending champions China crushed overnight joint leader Latvia to join Germany at the top of the table on 8.5 points after the third round.
Having conceded half a point in the first round itself, the Chinese women recorded their second 3-0 triumph in the event.
Second seed Russia, third seed United States and the 13th seed Hungary shared the third spot on 7.5 points each while the Indians were half a point behind them on 7 points sharing the 6th spot with Sweden, England, Slovakia, Netherlands, Ukraine and Poland.
It was a tough call for Grandmaster Humpy on the top board against World women's champion Antoaneta Stefanova.
Having lost in the semi-finals of the World Championship against Ekaterina Kovalevskaya at Kalmykia earlier this year, Humpy certainly wanted to have a full-bloodied battle against the Bulgarian but Stefanova's opening choice surprised her a great deal.
"I had come prepared to play the normal Slav and did not really expect her to play the Queen's Gambit accepted," Humpy said after the game.
"I went for some side variation thereafter and she got a slight advantage."
In the middle game, it was quite clear that only
Stefanova was pressing hard while Humpy was pushed to the wall.
However, an imaginative plan struck Humpy just while Stefanova was rolling her queen side pawns and the Indian star halted black's progress successfully.
Stefanova lost a pawn after the dust subsided but retained sufficient compensation to steer the game to a draw after a series of exchanges. The game lasted 36 moves.
Playing black, Vijayalakshmi came back strongly after a day's rest to outplay Margarita Voiska from an English opening game. The middle game was dynamically balanced from a Hdgehog structure and Vijayalakshmi was helped by a double edged pawn sacrifice by Voiska.
Keeping white's forces at bay on the queen side, Vijayalakshmi made decisive progress on the other flank with methodical play and had little troubles in catching Voiska's king off-guard in the heavy pieces endgame that ensued.
The Bulgarian resigned after 46 moves when faced with irresistible threats.
Dronavalli Harika played the white side of a Slav Chelyabinsk and did not get any advantage against Emilia Djingarova. Taking a safer route, Harika proposed a draw as early as on the 16th move that was accepted.
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