The Indian men’s chess team delivered yet another commanding 3.5-0.5 victory over Iran in the eighth round of the 45th Chess Olympiad, strengthening their claim for the gold medal in the Open section. However, the Indian women’s team faced a surprising 1.5-2.5 defeat at the hands of Poland.
With this latest triumph, the Indian men extended their perfect record to eight wins in eight matches, accumulating 16 points. They now lead the tournament by a substantial two-point margin over their closest rivals, Hungary and Uzbekistan, with just three rounds remaining.
World number four Arjun Erigaisi led the charge, defeating Bardiya Daneshvar with black pieces. D Gukesh followed suit, overcoming Parham Maghsoodloo in a thrilling game. R Praggnanandhaa secured a draw against Amin Tabatabaei, confirming India’s victory, while Vidit Gujrathi outplayed Idani Pouya to further boost the team’s score.
Erigaisi’s stellar performance brings him closer to the coveted 2800-rating mark, with a personal tally of 7.5 points from eight games. In live ratings, he now stands at 2793 points and is poised to become the 16th player in history—and the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand—to reach the 2800 milestone.
Gukesh’s win also propelled him to 2785 rating points, marking the first time two Indians are in the top five of world chess rankings.
Arjun created early complications again, going for the reverse Benoni with his black pieces. Daneshvar fell for some tactical tricks in the middle game and could not recover.
Gukesh also won with black and it was another Queen pawn game wherein the Indian chose to play the Dubov variation in the Tarrasch defense. Maghsoodloo went for some unwarranted complications and was caught off-guard as the clock ticked away in the middle game. Soon, the Iranian parted with a piece for a handful of pawns but fell prey to an easy tactical stroke that ended the game.
Vidit Gujrathi went for the Sozin variation against the Sicilian defense by Pouya and his attack was simply overwhelming, while Praggnanandhaa took things easy to ward off any serious counter play by Tabatabaei.
In the women’s section, the Indian team faltered for once as Grandmaster D Harika continued to struggle with her form on the top board, going down to Alina Kashlinskaya. This was Harika’s third loss in the event.
Polish Monika Socko defeated R Vaishali on the second board in a technical endgame where the latter made some unforced errors while Divya Deshmukh fought very hard to beat Aleksandra Maltsevskaya on the third board.
It was left to Vantika Agrawal to equalise and it looked like she had a complete winning position on hand. However, in to the sixth hour of play, Vantika made an optical blunder under time pressure and had to be content with a draw in the end with Alicja Sliwicka.
The Indian women’s team was joined by Poland and Kazakhstan on 14 points apiece at the top of the table, while USA, Armenia and Ukraine are a point behind.
In the next round, Indian men will take on Uzbekistan while the women are pitted against USA.
(With inputs from PTI)
