India shocked second seed China and topped Pool A at the online Chess Olympiad on Sunday. The 4-2 victory in the final round in the preliminary league helped the seventh seed finish with 17 points, one more than the Chinese.
The top place in the group means India will progress directly to the quarterfinals, while China and Germany, which took the third place, will have to go through the play-offs. The victory against China, which began the tournament as one of the strong favourites, should do India’s confidence a world of good.
It was the juniors that helped the team pull off the memorable win, as R. R. Praggnanandhaa and Divya Deshmukh took full points off Liu Yan and Zhu Jiner, respectively. All the four boards featuring the seniors were drawn.
Earlier in the day, India defeated Georgia 4-2 and Germany 4.5-1.5. India thus won eight of its nine matches in the league. It should have been nine out of nine if power failures at Nashik and Vijayawada hadn’t interrupted the games of captain Vidit Gujrathi and Koneru Humpy in the match against Mongolia on Saturday. The match was drawn 3-3.
“I was in a winning position against Batkhuyagiin Munguntuul, but I lost the internet connection and thus the game,” Humpy told The Hindu . “These things happen when you play chess online. ”Bharat Singh Chauhan of the All India Chess Federation has informed Vidit and me that arrangements have been made to play our remaining matches from a five star hotel if we want to,” said Humpy.
