Six rounds were played at the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, and the event reached a halfway point. Indian teams emerged as sole leaders of both Open and Women’s tournaments, scoring maximum 12/12 match points.
In the 6th round yesterday, Indian Open team convincingly defeated Hungary with the final score 3-1, and headed to today’s free day as the sole leader of the event. Gukesh D and Praggnanandhaa R drew their games against Richard Rapport and Peter Leko, while Arjun Erigaisi and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi scored wins for the Indian team which didn’t suffer a single board loss since the start of the tournament.
Scoring impressive 6/6 points, 21-year-old Arjun Erigaisi performs with 3341 rating performance, and climbed to the 4th position in the world at the live rating chess list.
Interesting matches awaits us in the 7th round which will start tomorrow at 15:00 CEST. India will face China and we might see a very anticipated game between reigning World Chess Champion Ding Liren and World Chess Championship Challenger Gukesh D. The game could give us the final answer who is in better form, as the chess audience already speculates who will win the World Chess Championship Match.
Indian Women’s team took the sole lead in the Women’s tournament after defeating Armenia with a narrow 2.5-1.5 victory. A hero of the Indian team was 18-year-old IM Divya Deshmukh who prevailed against GM Elina Danielian. The other three games finished in a draw.
Playing on the third board, IM Divya Deshmukh has a fantastic score of 5.5/6 points, and performs with impressive 2618 rating performance.
Indian Women’s team will tomorrow face Georgia on the top board, aiming to repeat 3-1 result from the previous Olympiad.
