How quickly fortunes change in sport! When the Indian contingent for the 42nd Chess Olympiad – the Olympics of Chess – was about to leave for the great Garry Kasparov’s hometown of Baku, Azerbaijan, coach and non-playing captain RB Ramesh told Hindustan Times that they were not looking at medal prospects. “We have not set any targets for us. We don’t want to focus on results. We want the team to put up a good performance in each round. We are not going there to defend the bronze medal. We just want to perform to our best capabilities,” Ramesh said.
It was a fair estimation from a relatively inexperienced team, seeded ninth and missing its strongest grandmasters in both the Open (male) and women’s sections. Vishwanathan Anand and Koneru Hampi had skipped the Olympiad once again, while Parimarjan Negi is on a sabbatical for his studies. As a result, the Open team of Pentala Harikrishna, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, B Adhiban, SP Sethuraman and Karthikeyan Murali featured only two players – Sethuraman and Adhiban – who were also part of India’s aforementioned first ever bronze-medal performance in 2014.
Inexperience, it was widely believed, could prove to be the team’s weakness despite strong World Chess Federation ratings and a near-stellar year of 2016.
Results of games past
The inexperience, however, was nowhere to be sighted for the first six rounds in Baku. The Olympiad is played in a Swiss-system tournament format, which pairs the strongest against the weakest teams in opening rounds. The Indian Open team made short work of their opponents – Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Azerbaijan-2 respectively – winning the first three rounds 4-0, 4-0 and 3-1. In rounds four through six, against Cuba (2.5-1.5), Azerbaijan (3-1) and the Netherlands (2.5-1.5), the competition was much stiffer, but at the end of the rounds the team had produced stunning results, finishing in first place without a game lost.
Against Azerbaijan especially, grandmasters Gujarathi and Harikrishna produced wins against higher-rated opponents in a match where all of India’s contingent was lesser rated than the host team, seeded fourth and in serious form heading up to the match. Against the Netherlands, Harikrishna held Anish Giri to a draw with white, while Adhiban converted with black against L’Ami, leaving India at the top of the table, poised for a clash with the United States, seeded second and replete with thre of the world’s top 10 players.
Results of games present
It was always going to be an uphill task. The US team enjoyed a clear lead in ratings and entered the round clear favourites. On the board, however, all seemed to be going much better than expected, for both Sethuraman and Harikrishna had emerged with sizeable advantages against Shankland and world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana respectively before the first time-control after 40 moves. With Gujarathi having arguably the best tournament of his career and playing White, it was only Adhiban who seemed in deep waters against much-stronger Hikaru Nakamura playing White.
However, this is where the Indian contingent failed to convert their initiative in quite spectacular fashion, and would have surely missed the precision and tournament experience of the likes of Vishwanathan Anand or Surya Shekhar Ganguly. While Harikrishna failed to find two back-to-back moves (34 Qh3 and 35 Rh8+) which secured decisive, if not completely clear advantages, Sethuraman, who was playing an equal-rated Samuel Shankland, blundered a completely winning position to end up on the losing side with Black. Sethuraman was a Queen ahead in evaluation when he missed a Knight-sacrifice that would have sealed the game instantly, and he made two shockingly bad moves thereafter, returning the position first to an equal and, subsequently, to a lost ending.
Gujarathi’s winning streak was also halted by Wesley So after a promising start, while Adhiban was outplayed by Nakamura in the middle-game, leaving the score 3.5-0.5 in the US’ favour. The result is sure to disappoint Indian fans and team-members, especially since they were well-within a sniff of at least a tie, if not a win.
As things stand, India is now at fifth place with 12 points, tied for team points with Russia, Ukraine, Britain, Latvia and tournament surprise-performers, Georgia, a point each behind the US, who face Russia in the next round. India face Britain in Round 8, with a chance for a medal still very much in the offing. However, the setback in Round 7 means they’ll need a big win against the British to rack up the total-points and remain in contention for the Gold. A lot will depend on the clash of the first and second seeds, Russia and the US, as well.
The women’s draw
Despite being seeded fifth, four ranks above the Open team, the Indian women’s side have not matched their male counterparts’ performance. They are placed 13th in the team rankings with four wins, two draws and one loss to Azerbaijan out of seven rounds, with a total of 10 points. The patchy performances of Board 1 for India, Harika Dronavalli, has been a problem, but the disastrous tournament Tania Sachdev – India’s second-highest rated player at the tournament – is having has dented India’s bid for a medal severely, if not irreparably.
Sachdev has now lost three back-to-back games to lesser rated opponents, and coupled with Dronavalli’s patchy show, it has resulted in a loss to Azerbaijan despite the host team having all players significantly lesser rated than the strong-on-paper Indian contingent. The Indian women play Uzbekistan in Round 8, seeded 22nd, and should look to make a strong comeback against significantly lesser-rated opponents. Whether or not Sachdev gets a rest after her last performance, though, remains to be seen.
