Batumi (Georgia): The Indian men and women’s teams made winning starts to their campaign in the 43rd Chess Olympiad here Tuesday.
The women team blanked New Zealand 4-0 with only Tania Sachdev facing some real trouble while the trio of Koneru Humpy, Eesha Karavade and Padmini Rout recorded easy victories.
On a day when Viswanathan Anand was rested, Krishnan Sasikiran dropped a half point on the fourth board but that was only after P Harikrishna, Vidit Gujrathi and B Adhiban had secured victories on the top three boards to ensure a win for the team.
Not a single match was drawn and this could be a record of sorts too. In the Open section, 64 teams out of 184 scored a perfect 4-0 start and another 17 won conceding just a half point.
Amongst the favourites, United States and Russia romped home with 4-0 wins but third-seeded China could only manage a 3-1 score with Li Chao losing to Aithmidou Mohamed-Mehdi of Morocco.
Fourth seed Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Armenia were the other fancied teams that dropped half a point apart from India in the men’s category.
For the Indian men, Harikrishna routed Ernesto Giron in quick time and Adhiban had little trouble to win as white against Daniel Arias.
Gujrathi showcased his skills at the expense of Ricardo Ernesto Chavez but Sasikiran faced some problems in the middle game and was forced to play out a stalemate.
Humpy, who played her first competitive game in two years did not look like she had been away for a long time. With some clinical precision, the Indian GM nailed Helen Milligan with black pieces.
Jasmir Haomo Zhang proved no match for Karavade despite showing some early promise while Qin Nicole Shu Yu lost to Padmini Rout in another one sided duel on the fourth board.