Indian Teams Start On Winning Note

By Arvind Aaron

Indian men and women team scored narrow wins by the format of the old system but comfortable to seize two points from their opening round opponents in men and women under the new format.

The Dresden Chess Olympiad commenced on Nov 13 with plenty of technology and power in their official website. You can switch your PC to http://dresden2008.de India is seed 13 in men and 11 in women. For the opener, Krishnan Sasikiran in men and Mary Ann Gomes in women were rested. Indian teams are sponsored by India Cements and the value of the sponsorship is Rs.10 lakhs.

Our men won 2.5-1.5 against Canada thanks to Surya Shekhar Ganguly's win with the black pieces against Pascal Charbonneau in the second board. Remember, Charbonneau beat Anand and Canada upset India 2.5-1.5 at Turin in the penultimate round. Men got their revenge.

Harikrishna and Gopal were not impressive with the white pieces. Harikrishna made his debut at Istanbul 2000 and also made a GM norm there. Gopal is making a debut this time. Harikrishna drew GM Mark Bluvshtein in the second board and Gopal split points against IM Igor Zukic in the third board.

The first game of the Olympiad to conclude was IM Nikolay Noritsyn of Canada holding GM Chanda to a draw on the fourth board in just 16 moves from a repetition. Remember that players need permission of the arbiter to draw under 30 moves in this Olympiad.

Our women could have scored more than 2.5-1.5 but the experienced Swiss players played responsibly to restrict our margin to minimal. Harika was held in a level rook ending by Dr Gundula Heinatz. Tania did not have a good pawn structure against pretty Monika Seps but could have played more as the Swiss opponent did not have much time to think on the clock. Nisha Mohota ran into some trouble after her king side operations ended in a pawn lock. She checked Barbara Hund's king with her queen repeatedly to earn a draw.

The only married player in our women's team, Swati Ghate won a long double bishop ending against Anastasia Gavrilova's in the fourth board to see India through by 2.5-1.5.

Many time former champions Russian men rested former world champion Vladimir Kramnik. They scored only 2.5-1.5 against Korchnoi's Switzerland. The highest rated Russian, Morozevich played on the third board and won while Svidler, Grischuk, Jokovenko drew to see the top seeds through. The new format might deter wins at the start and this is seen in almost all top results. With group pairings, there was no easy pairing and 4-0 pickings which normally was the order of all first round pairings in all Olympiads is rare to see this time.

Ukraine also won 2.5-1.5 with Efimenko winning on the fourth board against Vietnam. Third seed China overcame their Asian rivals the Philippines 2.5-1.5 with only So Wesley taking one point from the Chinese.

In the upsets corner, Iran held Hungary 2-2, Germany-B shocked Bulgaria 2.5-1.5, France was held by Montenegro, Latvia drew strong Israel 2-2, Georgia lost to Finland, etc. Winners get two points, those who make 2-2 draws one point each and losers get zero.

In women, favourites had a good day. Top seed Russia, former champions China, Georgia all scored big wins while defending champions Ukraine were 1-1 against Argentina with two games in progress. Trichy girl Jennitha Anto's IPC team won 3-0 but her result is marked with "*". She is playing for the World Handicapped Team (IPC).

A total of 144 teams in men and 110 in women are playing this event until Nov 25.

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Home                                                 Published on 14^th November,  2008