Former world champion Viswanathan Anand registered his first win but India were held to a 2-2 draw by Russia in the ongoing Online Nations Cup on Thursday, PTI reported.
Anand beat Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi in just 17 moves in the fifth round match to get the Indians off to a fine start.
However, after B Adhiban and D Harika drew their games against Sergey Karjakin and Olga Girya respectively, Vladislav Artemiev’s superb win over P Harikrishna made it 2-2 for Russia.
In other fifth round games, China beat USA 2.5-1.5 while Europe defeated Rest of the World by a similar margin.
India suffered a double blow, losing its matches to Europe and top-seeded China by similar 1.5-2.5 margins in the third and fourth round respectively on Wednesday. The event follows the double round-robin format, with the two leading teams battling for the title in the “Super-final”.
All matches involve four boards – represented by three men and a women player. The rapid time-control is 25-minute plus 10-second increment per move.