Indians continue good show in Chess Olympiad

The new-look Indian team continued its good performance in the second round of the 34th Chess Olympiad on Monday, with the men outplaying Mongolia 3-1 and the women holding a formidable Georgia to a 1.5-1.5 draw.

The top seeded Russians dropped a half point in the men's section and were relegated to the second spot behind Hungary, who scored a perfect 4-0 for the second day in succession.

In the major board of the day, Indian Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran crushed Hatanbaatar to give an early lead to his team. Springing a major surprise in the Moscow Variation, Sasikiran subdued the opposition and launched an attack against the King right from the word go.

After an error on the 10th move, Hataanbatar was forced to expose his King and soon Sasikiran ripped open the King's side to force a checkmate. The game lasted a mere 18 moves.

On the second board, GM Abhijit Kunte drew with D Shravdroj from the black side of a Nimzo Indian defence. Abhijit equalised easily from the opening and was surprised by the frequency of the exchanges offered by his opponent.

As the game progressed, the winning hopes for both appeared nil and the game was agreed drawn.

Fourteen-year-old International Master P Harikrishna had an easy outing against Odondoo Ganbold. Playing white, Harikrishna opened with the King pawn but the game transformed into a rare variation of the King pawn.

After emerging with a slight advantage out of the opening, Harikrishna slowly started squeezing his opponent and displayed good positional sense.

Ganbold remained passive throughout and tried to enforce complications in the late middlegame but his pieces remained inactive. On the 25th move, Harikrishna swindled with a knight sortie and won an exchange after which the Mongolian never recovered.

In a major upset for the Indians, GM Dibyendu Barua was held to a draw by lowly rated D Erhembayar. Barua, confident of his skills, employed the Queen's Gambit Decline with black pieces and got a comfortable position in the middle game.

Akin to his game against Kasparov (on the Internet), Barua deployed his forces on the King side and earned a Bishop-pair advantage.

Erhembayar sensed in time that playing for a win was risky and went on a forced exchange of pieces which made the game dull. The game was soon drawn.

Playing on the second table, the Indian women were undeterred by the big names in the powerful Georgian team and drew the encounters skilfully.

A record 127 teams in the men's section and 85 in the women's are vying for laurels in this 14-day extravaganza. In all, 14 rounds will be played, comprising 56 games for each team in the men's section and 42 in the women's section.