China won the inaugural $180,000 FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup following a 2-2 draw against USA on Sunday.
China, which lost to USA in the concluding league match on Saturday evening, was declared the winner on the basis of topping the points table in the round-robin stage.
China won $48,000, USA $36,000 and others received $24,000 each.
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Superfinal ends even
After Ding Liren and Hikaru Nakamura signed peace and Hou Yifan drew with Irina Krush, Yu Yangyi continued his stupendous form by avenging Saturday’s loss to Wesley So and ensured the title for China. Soon, Fabiano Caruana went on to defeat Wei Yi to make it 2-2.
On Saturday, India concluded its campaign by playing to its seeding and finished fifth, ahead of sixth seed Rest of the World (RoW). With Viswanathan Anand taking a break on the final day of the league stage, India lost 1.5-2.5 to third seed Russia.
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Vidit and Adhiban lose
As seen during the better part of the league, the poor form of Vidit Gujrathi and reserve player B. Adhiban reflected in India’s defeat, its sixth in 10 rounds. Humpy’s victory over Olga Girya was the only bright spot for India after P. Harikrishna drew with Sergey Karjakin.
Vidit was the first to lose, to Vladislav Artemiev and later, Adhiban became a victim of time-pressure and committed a series of mistakes despite attaining a good grip over the proceedings against Dmitry Andreikin.
The results: Superfinal: China drew with USA 2-2 (Ding Liren drew with Hikaru Nakamura; Wei Yi lost to Fabiano Caruana; Yu Yangyi bt Wesley So; Hou Yifan drew with Irina Krush)
10th round:Russia bt India 2.5-1.5 (Vladislav Artemiev bt Vidit Gujrathi; Sergey Karjakin drew with P. Harikrishna; Dmitry Andreikin bt B. Adhiban; Olga Girya lost to K. Humpy); USA bt China 2.5-1.5; Europe drew with Rest of the World 2-2.
Standings (after 10 rounds): 1. China (17 match-points), 2-3. USA and Europe (13 each), 4. Russia (8), 5. India (5), 6. RoW (4) .