Cruising steadily towards the halfway mark, the 44th chess Olympiad at Hotel Four Points by Sheraton, Mamallapuram, Chennai is assuming incredible proportions in the form of competition, expectation, combined with a bunch of surprises and uncertainties. Leading the Open section with 10 match points were the young India 2 and Armenia. Following them at 9 match points were Uzbekistan, India, USA, Iran and Cuba respectively. In the women’s section, it was a three-way tie on the top with 10 match points viz., India, Georgia and Romania. On the heels of the leaders were Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan with 9 match points.
Sailing on the lone win of National Champion GM Erigaisi Arjun, team India defeated Romania 2.5 – 1.5, while India 3 banked on GMs Sethuraman and Abhimanyu Puranik putting it across Chile by a similar margin.
Led by Grandmaster Adhiban Baskaran, India 2 excelled on-demand bringing down fourth-seeded Spain 2.5 – 1.5 in a closely fought match. In a harmless middle game, GM Gukesh got a slight edge and maneuvered to press on the kingside. GM Alexei Shirov tried a counterattack with the knight and rook on the queenside. In the end, GM Gukesh overcame super GM Alexei Shirov increasing his LIVE rating to 2714.1, while moving upto 27th spot in the world, all at 16 years of age. With his 5/5 score on the top board along with a rating performance of ELO 3296 Grandmaster Gukesh is truly setting the Bay of Bengal on fire.
Another Indian GM Adhiban gradually built a strong position without taking any risk. His knight manoeuvres gained him more than a couple of minutes on the timer. From the innocent looking position, true to his style Adhiban created a passer and won in 45 moves. This is really a great feat by youngsters. In the upset of the day, 6th seed Azerbaijan went down to 32nd seeded Cuba.
World Champion Magnus Carlsen led Norway to a 3.5 – 0.5 victory over Zambia. The team win propelled Norway to 7 match points and are set to play Australia in the next round.
For the second time in a row, IM Tania Sachdev’s win led the team India to a 2.5 – 1.5 victory over France. Humpy, Harika and Vaishali drew their games leaving the completion task to Tania. The Delhi girl was up to it, bringing down WIM Navrotescu Andreea (2373) in 38 moves. India 2 playing on the third board lost the two lower boards games going down 1-3 to Georgia. Further down, India 3 survived 2-2 against Brazil thanks to WGM Nandhidhaa’s win that evened out WGM Prathyusha’s loss.
Key sixth round pairings in the Open section: Uzbekistan – India, India 2 – Armenia, USA – Iran, Cuba – Spain. In the women’s section it is: India – Georgia, Romania – Ukraine, Azerbaijan – Kazakhstan, Serbia – Poland.
The matches become more involved, tense and with a lot of potential for the younger generation to learn from. The sixth round is scheduled to start by 3pm IST on Wednesday, 3rd August, 2022.
Open section: Main Results Round 5:
India (15) beat Romania (13.5), Spain (14.5) lost to India 2 (17.5), England (14.5) lost to Armenia (15), Israel (15.5) lost to United States of America (13.5), France (15.5) drew Poland (13.5), Azerbaijan (13.5) lost to Cuba (15.5), Iran(14.5) beat Turkey (14), Uzbekistan(17) beat Slovakia (12), Netherlands (16) beat Canada (12.5), Slovenia(13) lost to Germany (14), Chile (12.5) lost to India 3 (13.5), Croatia (14.5) beat Iceland (11.5).
Women: Main Results Round 5:
France (15) lost to India (15.5), Ukraine (15.5) drew Azerbaijan (15.5), India 2 (14) lost to Georgia (15), Poland (15.5) lost to Romania (14.5), Kazakhstan (15) beat Cuba (13), Germany (14.5) beat Mongolia (14), United States of America (12.5) lost to Peru (15), Indonesia (14) lost to Armenia (16.5), Hungary (14.5) beat Sweden (13), Colombia (13.5) drew Spain(15), Iran(13.5) lost to Bulgaria(16), India 3 (12.5) drew Brazil (13.5).
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