Istanbul Chess Olympiad R3 - Both Indian teams continue winning spree

GM P Harikrishana flying the Indian flag high

Indian teams at the Istanbul Chess Olympiad 2012 continued with a steady performance winning the third round in both the open and women’s section. GMs P Harikrihsna and Abhijeet Gupta beat former world chess championship candidate Alexander Beliavsky and Malej Sebenik for a 3-1 victory. The other two games were draw. Tania Sachdev scored an important win for India over Lilit Galojan even as other three boards were draw. Both the teams play the fourth round on the top board. Eight more rounds have to be played and the tough part begins now.

Indian pairings for Round 4 are as follows:

United States Of America - India1.1 GM Nakamura, Hikaru 2778 – GM Sasikiran, Krishnan 27071.2 GM Kamsky, Gata 2746 – GM Harikrishna, Pentala 26851.3 GM Onishuk, Alexander 2666 – GM Negi, Parimarjan 26641.4 GM Akobian, Varuzhan 2617 – GM Gupta, Abhijeet 2637

India - Serbia1.1 GM Dronavalli, Harika 2503 – IM Bojkovic, Natasa 23921.2 IM Karavade, Eesha S 2371 – WGM Manakova, Maria 23041.3 IM Sachdev, Tania 2379 – WIM Rakic, Marija 23001.4 WGM Gomes, Mary Ann 2396 – WGM Benderac, Ana 2266

Judit Polgar: the highest-ever rated woman chess player for Hungary

Meanwhile, defending champions Ukraine barely managed to beat Israel. GM Ruslan Ponomariov was clearly worse against his Israeli counterpart GM Maxim Rodstein, but the former World Chess Champion somehow managed to win after the time control. GM Boris Avrukh ground down GM Pavel Eljanov, but GM Andrei Volokitin showed no mercy against GM Evgeny Postny. With Ivanchuk and Gelfand drawing on the top board, Ukraine won the match by 2.5-1.5. Russia played safe, scoring three draws and a win by Jakovenko in their match against Latvia.

After yesterday’s exhausting game with Lithuania, USA top board Hikaru Nakamura played the necessary 30 moves to take a draw with GM Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela. Nakamura’s team-mates cleared the rest of the opposing team for the convincing 3.5-0.5 victory. Azerbaijan beat the Faroe Island team with 3.5-0.5 even as England beat Cuba 3-1 with both Adams and Short winning. Levon Aronian helped Armenia beat Spain. Aronian defeated Paco Vallejo with white. The other three boards were draw. This is the first Chess Olympiad for Spain without Shirov who has now gone to Latvia. Oleg Korneev on their 4th board.

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France scored the same minimal victory against Bulgaria thanks to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s handling of the rook endgame against Veselin Topalov as the remaining Frenchmen drew their games.

In the women’s section, World Champion Hou Yifan played her first game in Istanbul. IM Mariya Muzychuk beat GM Zhao Xue, but Yifan struck back and beat Kateryna Lahno on the top board. With the other two games drawn the match ended with a 2-2 score. Georgia and Germany drew their match as well. Poland and France beat Hungary and Austria by a score of 3-1. Serbia beat Spain 3.5-0.5. Russia and Greece beat Mongolia and Peru respectively. Czech Republic beat the higher-seeded Romania. The lower-rated Uzbekistan drew with USA!

Follow all the action at the official website with live games every day from India time 5.30 pm.