The Hindu : Sport / Chess : India assured of chess gold

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 14, 2006
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India assured of chess gold

Manuel Aaron

Doha: India assured itself of the gold medal at the end of the eighth and penultimate round of the Asian Games team chess championship on Wednesday.

India beat Indonesia 2.5-0.5 to get a whopping 5.5 points lead over China, which was held to a 1.5-1.5 draw by Kazakhstan. India has 21 points and China is in second place with 15.5 points. As every match is fought on three boards, the Indian lead cannot be overhauled.

India plays Kazakhstan in the last round on Thursday. The last round should see a keen tussle among China, Kazakhstan, Qatar for the silver and bronze medals.

On Wednesday, Humpy played the Modern Defence against Irine Sukandar of Indonesia who developed her pieces well but did not know what to do after that. Humpy easily won in 27 moves.

On the top board, Sasikiran played the Grunfeld Defence and won a pawn against Grandmaster Adianto. But white's queen and rook were well perched on black's second rank. With clever play Sasi dislodged the white forces, exchanged off rooks and won a queen ending with three extra pawns.

Grandmaster Susanto Megaranto held Harikrishna to a draw in 66 moves of a bishop ending.

The All India Chess Federation president, N. Srinivasan, congratulated the players on their achievement.

Points position (after eight rounds): 1. India 21; 2. China 15.5; 3. Qatar 15; 4. Kazakhstan 14.5; 5-8. Indonesia, Iran, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan 13.5; 9. Philippines 13; 10. Mongolia 12.5; 11. Turkmenistan 12; 12-14. Jordan, UAE, Bahrain 11; 15-17. Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Syria 10.5; 18. Japan 10; 19. Palestine 9.5; 20. Nepal 7.5; 21. Macau 3.

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