Thursday, Nov 07, 2002
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Chess
By Arvind Aaron
Indian women also had a tough day losing 1-2 to the Russians with Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman winning on the prestigious top board after the other two players lost. Russia increased its lead by half a point by scoring a 3-1 win over China with victories coming from the white boards of the former world champions, Garry Kasparov and Alexander Khalifman. Russia leads the men's event with 28.5 points and they are followed by Hungary on 27.5 points. Zoltan Almasi's win on board three with the white pieces helped the Hungarians defeat Bosnia & Herzegovina 2.5-1.5. Indian men are on 24 points after this disappointing performance. In the women's section, it is Georgia on top although it had a low margin 2-1 score against Hungary with only Nana Ioseliani managing to win on the top table. China made some ground winning 2.5-0.5 against Greece. Georgia has 24 points and China is behind it with 21.5 points. In third place are Russia and United States with 20.5 points each. India has 18 points after the defeat. India has a long tradition of good scores against England. If Murugan gave India that vital point against Mestel in the 1988 Thessaloniki Olympiad or Thipsay gave India an unexpected win against Adams at Manila 1992, India always did well as there was nothing for our players to lose being underdogs. England fielded its three main stars Adams, Short, Speelman and latecomer Conquest. Sixth seed, Englishmen start slow and this Olympiad is no different. Conquest arrived late after the first few rounds as he lost his laptop computer and passport on the day of his travel to Bled. He was at a fast food restaurant in London when a decoy distracted him and another picked up his laptop and fled. His passport was also in a folder in the laptop bag and his travel was delayed. Adams sacrificed a pawn against Sasikiran with the white pieces and the compensation he had was black could not castle. The experienced world elite group player manoeuvred his younger rival using this handicap of black. Sasikiran had plenty of problems to address and all of it involved his king and in the end, at move 54 he had to resign as Adams had three extra pawns on the queen side. Harikrishna lost an earlier game in round six by sacrificing his bishop for nothing against a low rated Bolivian. This time, he wanted to exploit black's king position in a queen's Indian defence and gave his knight on move 13 and later a rook on move 17. Short defended black's position after the unexpected shower of gifts to win the game in 43 moves. Harikrishna is probably sensing the pressure of not being able to win a game and by raising his risk level with white has put India in trouble early in the other boards. Ganguly played a correct, mature defensive game to draw Speelman effortlessly in 50 moves with the black pieces. If someone had chances, it was only the Indian who played black and faced white's surprise Larsen opening. British champion Ramesh had white on the bottom board but did not get the desired advantage from the opening. Conquest had played the Alekhine defence and got into a major pieces ending with white having to bother about greater pawn weaknesses. After 53 moves, in a queen and rook ending, black proposed a draw and Ramesh took it. After losing on many occasions, England has woken up to beat India and move closer towards the top where it rightly belongs. It was India's third 1-3 defeat and after four straight wins it has been checked. The Indian women's team's preparation lasted a few minutes before the match. After lunch, trainer Ruslan Scherbakov took all the three players for a walk and finally to the venue a minute before play actually started. Importantly for Scherbakov, India was playing his home country, Russia. India had not brought Koneru Humpy and Russia had not brought Alisa Galliamova. Aarthie Ramaswamy (score so far 3/8) lost her fourth game of the Olympiad when she allowed a double attack on the 29th move with the white pieces against WGM Tatiana Kosintseva on the third board. The Sveshnikov variation of the Sicilian defence produced sharp play by the Russian but Aarthie was engrossed in her planning and lost in 32 moves when she was about to be checkmated. On board two, Meenakshi (so far 3.5/6) played a game she would not like to play again. She started an attack on the white king before developing her pieces on the queen side in the Dutch defence. The experienced Svetlana Matveeva sacrificed a pawn in the centre of the board and used her control on the king file to penetrate and get a mating attack and win in just 26 moves. Trailing 0-2, Vijayalakshmi had a tough task of saving India from a wipe out. When she swung her queen to the king side of the enemy, Kovalevskaya gave up a rook for minor piece. With Vijayalakshmi holding the upper hand, Kovalevskaya had to save white from defeat as black's queen pawn was advancing. She returned the rook for bishop and played with an extra pawn. Kovalevskaya lost one more pawn and it became a winning ending for the Indian with two extra and connected pawns. Vijayalakshmi finally won sixth game of the tournament and is our best performer.
Kasparov warned
World No.1 Garry Kasparov was warned during the game by the chief arbiter Geurt Gijssen for putting his fingers into his own board area and calculating moves as if counting sheep flock. This act was confirmed by the chief arbiter in the press conference before the summary of the day. Rumours sourcing from around the board at that time said the World No.1 responded with an abusive word, which the arbiter rejects as "untrue''. Kasparov was tensed as play continued against China's Ye Jiangchuan at time control. The Russian won the match but faced stiff resistance before winning to give Russia a 3-1 win over the Chinese. In possible response to this action by the arbiter, the entire Russian team did not enter the playing area for the first ten minutes of round eleven. They were present at the venue but did not take their boards. In the eleventh round, India is facing an all Grandmaster team from Macedonia and Sasikiran on the top and Thipsay at the bottom have been rested. Thus, Harikrishna faced Kiril Georgiev on the top board with white, Ganguly takes on Vladimir Georgiev in board two with black, Kunte plays GM Nikola Mitkov with white and Ramesh takes the black pieces against GM Trajce Nedev. India is seeded 24 and Macedonia 33rd. Except for Ganguly, all Indian players are lower rated than their opponents. India is on 24 points in the joint 13th place. Last time, the team scored 33 points at Istanbul and finished eighth. Four rounds remain to be played. Indian women, seeded 18 are facing Yugoslavia, which is seventh ranked. Meenakshi is given rest for this match. Indian Airlines girl Vijayalakshmi (7/9) is scoring for India but support is lacking for her on the other tables. India is on 18 points and tied for the tenth place. India's best placing is ninth recorded at Lausanne 1982. Last year the team finished 13th at Istanbul. Important results (round 10): Men: Russia (28.5) bt China (25) 3-1, Hungary (27.5) bt Bosnia & Herzegovina (25) 2.5-1.5, England (26) bt India (24) 3-1, Croatia (24.5) playing Slovakia (24) 1.5-1.5, Ukraine (25) bt Poland (24) 2.5-1.5, Georgia (25) bt. Netherlands (24) 2.5-1.5, Germany (26) bt Czech Republic (23) 3.5-0.5. Women: Georgia (24) bt Hungary (18.5) 2-1, Greece (17.5) lost to China (21.5) 0.5-2.5, India (18) lost to Russia (20.5) 1-2, USA (20.5) bt Slovakia (18) 2-1, Poland (19) bt Kazakhstan (17.5) 2-1, Bulgaria (18) drew Ukraine (18) 1.5-1.5.
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