Vantika Agrawal saves the day for India at Chess Olympiad

The top seeded India women slipped again. Though Vantika Agrawal's face-saving win against Irina Krush of USA in a topsy-turvy game helped India hold seventh seeds USA to a 2-2 draw, they have to win the last two rounds to keep the aspirations of gold medal alive. That appears to be a huge task at the moment considering Team India's slipping form in the last two rounds after having taken sole lead.

The men are in a comparatively better position because even a win or draw could clinch the issue for them.

On a day of grudge match-ups for India — the women had lost to USA in the last Olympiad and men were held by Uzbekistan in the penultimate round then — Vaishali lost on the top board and the men were about to make it 2-2 with Arjun's game still unfinished at the time of going to press.

Though R Praggnanandhaa is playing below-par by his high standards, he can take credit for India's satisfactory show against the defending champions and fourth seeds. Pragg, playing with black pieces, came up with effective answers against Javokhir Sindarov's prepared line in the Paulsen attack on the second board for a much valued draw after 36 moves.

However, when pushed to the top board after resting off-colour Harika, Pragg's sister GM R Vaishali (2498) failed to rise to the occasion and lost to Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova (Elo 2380) in the women's section. After Divya Deshmukh and Tania Sachdev's drawn games, followed by Vaishali's defeat, Vantika Agrawal held her nerve for an invaluable win with black pieces against Alice Lee and levelled the tie.

Men locked in tense tussle
In the men's clash, D Gukesh-Nodribek Abdusattorov and Jakhongir Vakhidov-Vidit Gurathi match-ups ended in a draw.

"Do we sense the evil hand of Big Vlad," Anand asked jokingly about Sindarov's position against Pragg. Big Vlad — Russia's Vladimir Kramnik — is captaining Uzbekistan. Russia as a team is banned due to the country's invasion of Ukraine. Kramnik was quite active in the match against India. The brain behind the decision to rest Nodirbek Yakkuboev (Elo 2666) from the second board seemed to be his. For Yakkuboev's replacement, Jakhongir Vakhidov (2571), is deemed as a weaker player and Indians were taken by surprise.

The stunner of the day was provided by Vladimir Fedoseev of Slovenia who defeated Norway's world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen with black. The last position was crazy (rook, pawn vs rook and two pawns) with all black pieces on white's half of the board and vice-versa.


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