The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Winning start for Indian teams

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 17, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Winning start for Indian teams

MALLORCA, OCT. 16. The Indian men's and women's team were off to a winning start, albeit in contrasting styles, in the 36th chess Olympiad at the Gran Casino in Calvia. While the men beat unfancied Uruguay 2.5-1.5, the women scoring a crushing 2.5-0.5 victory over Mexico.

Playing without the services of World Rapid champion, Viswanathan Anand and National champion, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, both of whom were rested in the opening round, the all-GM Indian team saw only Sandipan Chanda winning his board with white pieces. Krishnan Sasikiran and Abhijit Kunte were held to draws with black pieces, while P. Harikrishna had to split points with white colour.

Sasikiran signed the peace-treaty in just 23 moves against GM Andres Rodriguez, while Kunte got into some opening problems against Curi Gabriel and decided against going for risky ventures in his 21-move draw.

Harikrishna was held to a draw by Bernardo Mailhe Roselli in a marathon 68-move game. Sandipan Chanda defeated Alejandro Bauza in a finely crafted game to gain full points. Meanwhile, former World champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia was denied much pleasure by unheralded FM Marc Simonet of Andorra with the latter drawing in an apprantly superior position.

Vijayalakshmi held

The Indian women could have also boasted of a clean sweep but for the surprise result that saw WGM S. Vijayalakshmi being held to a draw by Edith Garcia, rated more than 350 ELO points below the Indian.

Vijayalakshmi was pushed to the wall right from the middle game stage and managed to wriggle out only in the endgame to get the half point.

GM Koneru Humpy and IM Nisha Mohota won their games against Guerrero Yadira Hernandez and Guadalupe Vazquez respectively

The top seed and defending champion China dropped half a point enroute to a 2.5-0.5 triumph over Norway in its opening match. The next three seeds, Russia, United States and Georgia, also had to concede a draw in their matches. — Agencies

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport