chess olympiad indian men team continues to dominate women suffer first defeat

Budapest. Indian men’s team strengthened its claim for gold medal by registering a spectacular 3.5-0.5 win against Iran in the eighth round of the 45th Chess Olympiad here, but the women had to face a shocking defeat of 1.5-2.5 at the hands of Poland. This is the first defeat of the Indian women’s team in the competition. With the eighth consecutive win in the open category, the men’s team has maintained a sole lead with a total of 16 points. Host Hungary, Uzbekistan are two points behind them in the table. Arjun Erigaisi, ranked fourth in the world rankings, made an aggressive start with black pieces and defeated Bardiya Daneshwar.

D Gukesh, a challenger for the upcoming World Championship, defeated Iran’s Param Maghsoodloo in the opening time control. R Praggnanandhaa drew with Amin Tabatabaei while Vidit Gujrathi added points to the team’s victory by defeating Idani Pouya. With a personal 7.5 points from his eight matches, Arjun’s classical live rating has reached 2792.7 while Gukesh has 2784.6 rating points. This is the first time that there are two Indian players in the top five in the world rankings.

In the women’s category, the Indian team suffered a big setback when Grandmaster D Harika, R Vaishali lost their matches to Poland’s Alina Kashlinskaya and Monika Socko respectively. Divya Deshmukh defeated Alexandra Maltsevskaya to bring India back into the competition. Despite being in a better position, Vantika Agarwal failed to register a win against Alicja Slivka. The match ended in a draw, due to which the team had to face its first defeat in the tournament. The Indian women’s team has 14 points to its name. The team is jointly at the top of the table with Poland and Kazakhstan. In the ninth round, the Indian men will face Uzbekistan and the women’s team will face America.

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