The Hindu : Sport / Chess : India in sole lead

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Saturday, Dec 09, 2006
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India in sole lead

Manuel Aaron

Doha: India shot into sole lead with a 2-1 victory over host Qatar at the end of the third round of the Asian Team chess championship.

India leads with 7.5 points while Vietnam is on 7. Vietnam beat Uzbekistan 2-1 and China beat Iran 2.5-0.5.

K. Humpy was probably overconfident against the former World Women's Champion Zhu Chen as she had beaten her easily in the Rapid championship a few days ago. She went on an attacking spree and got into time trouble. Towards the end she blundered a knight and lost.

Fantastic game

On the second board Harikrishna played a fantastic game against International Master Mohamad Al Sayed. He sacrificed a bishop for what appeared to be a fruitless attack.

Nigel Short, who is here as the coach of the Iranian team, said: "I cant believe that he got away with that sacrifice." But he made beautiful and clever moves one after the other to finally subdue Al Sayed.

Grandmaster Al Modaihki played adventurously against Sasikiran and sacrificed a knight for what looked like a decisive attack. But with a few deft moves, Sasikiran showed that he had anticipated and planned against that attack. Eventually he had two bishops for a rook and won on the 66th move.

Third round standings: 1. India 7.5; 2. Vietnam 7; 3-5. Qatar, China, Indonesia 6.5; 6. Uzbekistan 6; 7-9. Syria, Kazakhstan, Philippines 5; 10-12. Mongolia, Iran, Jordan 4.5; 13-16. Bangladesh, Turkmenistan, Bahrain, UAE 4; 17-18. Sri Lanka, Palestine 2.5; 19. Nepal 2; 20-21. Macau, Japan 1.5.

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