Chess Olympiad: Koneru Humpy, R Vaishali star as India A win

Mamallapuram, August 3

India’s top player Koneru Humpy and R Vaishali led the women’s A team to a 3-1 win over a strong Georgian side in the sixth round of the 44th Chess Olympiad here today.

In the open section, teenaged Grandmaster D Gukesh’s splendid run continued as he notched up a sixth consecutive win, but India B went down 1.5-2.5 to former champions Armenia.

He put it across Gabriel Sargissian but could not prevent the team from going down as B Adhiban and Raunak Sadhwani suffered defeats at the hands of Samvel Ter-Sahakyan and Robert Hovhannisyan, respectively. Nihal Sarin drew his match against Hrant Melkumyan.

It was the formidable India B team’s first loss in the competition.

India C recorded an emphatic 3.5-0.5 win over Lithuania as SP Sethuraman, Abhijeet Gupta and Abhimanyu Puranik recorded wins and the experienced Surya Shekhar Ganguly drew against Titas Stremavicius.

Humpy defeated Nana Dzagnidze in 42 moves, Vaishali scored a win over Lela Javakhishvili, while D Harika and Tania Sachdev settled for draws against Nino Batsiashvili and Salome Melia in the clash between the top-seeded India A and third-seeded Georgia.