India to make a prudent move in Chess Olympiad

P Harikrishna

Chennai, Aug 1 (IANS) The Indian men's chess decided to continue with success strategy of the Asian Nations Cup by fielding the stronger player at the lower board and lower rated players at the top two boards in the 2014 Chess Olympic starting Saturday in the Norwegian city of Tromse.

As per the board order published by www.chess-results.com, India Grandmaster (GM) K.Sasikiran, the highest rated Indian player with an ELO rating of 2,669 points, will be playing on the third board. Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi (2,645) will play in the first board, GM S.P.Sethuraman (2,590) will fight it out in the second board and GM B.Adhiban (2,619) will play on the fourth board. The fifth player GM Lalith Babu M.R. (2,565) will be the reserve player.

"I feel the idea must be that Adhiban and Sasikiran trying to score on Board 3 and 4," Grand Master P.Harikrishna, World No.27, told IANS.

It has been the practice of Indian chess teams in the past to field the highest ranked player on the top board and the next highest rated player on the second board and so on.

But other teams aiming to win the medal would field its strongest players at the lower boards. The idea is to secure a win at the lower boards with top rated players, while the lower rated team members will try to hold/draw their games at the top boards against stronger opponents.

At the Asian Nations Cup, the Indian team decided break away from the tradition and adopted the alternate strategy of playing Sasikiran and Negi on the second and fourth boards. Speaking to IANS earlier on the board strategy to be adopted by the Indian team, Sasikiran did not rule out adopting the strategy followed in the Asian Nations Cup tourney. The Indian team with an average ELO points of 2,617 points is ranked 19th amongst the various teams based on average rating of the team members.