Indian star leader GM Krishnan Sasikiran |
On Board 13, India beat Turkey 3-1. GM Krishnan Sasikiran beat IM Burak Firat and GM Abhijeet Gupta beat CM Vahap Sanal. GM Parimarjan Negi picked up a draw against FM Ali Marandi and GM Gopal, Geetha Narayanan drew with CM Dastan Muhammed Batuhan.
On Board 6, in the women's section, India beat Australia 3.5 to 0.5. IM Eesha Sanjay Karawade, IM Tania Sachdev and WGM Mary Ann Gomes picked up wins over WIM Arianne Caoili, Sally Yu and Giang Nguyen. WGM Soumya Swaminathan drew with WIM Bijana Novakovic-Dekic.
None other than one of Asia's greatest women chess players - WIM Rani Hamid playing for Bangladesh |
Meanwhile, on the top boards, Ukraine, the defending champion defeated Qatar with a 3-1 score despite the loss by first board GM Vassily Ivanchuk to GM Mohamad Al-Modiahki. Ivanchuk was slightly better with black but he carelessly allowed the enemy queen to sneak into the back rank. Ivanchuk immediately resigned, declining attempts to seek compensation for the piece. The United States beat Lithuania 3.5-0.5 after Hikaru Nakamura finally broke down the stubborn resistance of Grecian GM Vidmantas Malisauskas in a marathon 107-moves long game. Azerbaijan had no difficulty dispatching their Irish opponents, however the young talent FM Ryan Rhys Griffiths managed to steal the only draw for his team in the game against the seasoned Azeri GM Rauf Mamedov.