Chess Olympiad 2022 Day 4 Highlights: India C Team suffers loss against Spain; Uzbekistan upsets USA

Mamallapuram, Aug 1: It was a day of mixed emotions for Team India in the ongoing 44th Chess Olympiad here on Monday (August 1) as Team A and B won their games but Team C lost to higher-ranked Spain in round four.

Adhibhan Bhaskaran of Team B, the darling team of chess enthusiasts at the venue, was rested today and while interacting with media quipped, "We are here with an intention to win a medal and would not spare any effort to do so." The India B team had so far trounced all their three opponents in the previous round with 4-0 score.

Today, however, India B Team won their fourth Match on the trot by defeating Italy but had to stay content with a 3-1 score. The higher ranked and second seed India A Team was held to a 2-2 draw by 5th seed France with all the four board splitting points while the 16th seed India C were defeated by fourth seed Spain seeded fourth with a 1.5-2.5 score.

In a major upset former World Championship Challenger Fabiano Caruana of the USA was upset by Nodirbek Abdusattaarov of Uzbekistan. Nodirbek a 17-year-old prodigy has been one of the rising faces of future chess. Uzbekistan held the top-seeded, star-studded USA team to a 2-2 draw. Fifth seed Poland was held by Romania to a draw.

The 11th seeded Indian Women C Team edged past Estonia with a 2.5-1.5 score with Vantika Agrawal bringing the winning point for her team while the other three games ended in draws. Vantika Agarwal has been in top form, scoring a superb 4/4.

The third-seeded Georgian Women's Team proved too strong for the India C Team with P V Nandhidhaa winning her encounter against Nino Batsiashvili, rated higher than her. Esha Karavade lost to Nana Dzagnidze, Sahithi VArshini to Lela Jaikhishvili and Pratyusha to Salome Melia. Top seed India A Women Team were tied 1.5-1.5 and are likely to win the match as Tania Sachdev was in a winning position on the fourth board at the time of going to press.

The India B team continued their impressive run with Gukesh and Nihal Sarin scoring victories and Praggnanandhaa and Sadhwani conceding draws. For the India C team, Sethuraman ended on the losing side while Surya Shekhar Ganguly held fancied Alexei Shirov, a former World Championship Challenger to a draw.

Gukesh played a fantastic game against Daniele Vocaturo, who had held Magnus Carlsen to a draw yesterday. In a Queen's Gambit Declined game Gukesh went on a pawn grabbing spree with tactical strokes and pocketed the point after 34 moves when his Queen, rook and bishop surrounded his opponent's king.

The Matthieu Cornette versus Arjun Erigaisi encounter in a Sicilian Defence was rather a quick affair, both in terms of time and moves with both players keen on exchanging pieces and steering the game towards a draw by repetition of moves on the the24th turn.

(With FIDE inputs)