Indian men crush Azerbaijan as women beat Kazakhstan

Arjun Erigaisi

Backed by the two in-form stars in World Championship challenger D Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi, the Indian men scored a 3-1 victory over Azerbaijan in the fifth round of the 45th Chess Olympiad here on Monday. It seems like Gukesh and Arjun can do nothing wrong in this Olympiad as they overpowered Aydin Sulemanli and Rauf Mamedov respectively with their white pieces in quick time.

Praggnanandhaa played another draw on board two to only ensure an Indian victory while Vidit Gujrathi played out a draw with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in a marathon game to complete the triumph. After scoring the fifth victory on the trot, the Indian men maintained a clean slate on ten points and they were joined by Vietnam who continued with their impressive show and downed Poland 2.5-1.5.

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The other two teams that joined the leaders' pack were China and Hungary who scored identical 2.5-1.5 victories over Spain and Ukraine respectively. With six rounds still to come in the biggest chess event, Magnus Carlsen's Norway and Iran are the only two teams sharing the fifth spot on 9 points apiece. Norway defeated a talented Turkey team by a 3-1 margin while Iran made most of the opportunities to down Canada 3.5-0.5.

In the women's section, Grandmaster D Harika suffered a shock defeat to give Kazakhstan an early lead. Better for most of the game, Harika misplayed after many pundits believed her position to be winning against Bibisara Assaubayeva. On the fourth board Vantika Agarwal yet again played the anchor and won a clean game with white pieces against Alua Nurman while Xeniya Balabayeva split the point with Divya Deshmukh. With the scores tied at 2-2 it was Vaishali's turn to come up triumphs for the team and she outwitted Meruert Kamalidenova.

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