Poland trip up top seeds India women for third Olympiad in a row

Bengaluru: For the third Fide Chess Olympiad in a row, the Indian women’s team have been upset by Poland. The Poles have seemingly turned into kryptonite for the top seeds and defending champions.

Women’s World Championship challenger, grandmaster R Vaishali lost to international master Aleksandra Maltsevskaya on Board 2, while Koneru Humpy, Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal drew their games as India lost 1.5-2.5 to Poland in Round 5 on Sunday.

In the Open section, R Praggnanandhaa rung in his first win of this Olympiad, defeating Anish Giri on the top board while reigning world champion D Gukesh, playing with the Black pieces, found his third win in a row, defeating Erwin L’Ami on Board 4 as the defending champions scored a 3-1 victory over the Netherlands.

“In team events, you’re always looking at your teammates’ boards and you make decisions based on it,” Praggnanandhaa said. “Today for instance, Anish offered me a draw at some point and I had to take a call whether I’d take the draw or just go for it. I felt Gukesh was pushing but it was not really clear and White could manage a fortress. So, keeping my game going made sense and it worked out.”

The Indian women weren’t the only top seeds who had a rough day. Open section top seeds USA suffered a defeat to Germany after Frederik Svane took down Hans Niemann. Wesley So needed to defeat Mathias Bluebaum to avert a defeat for the Americans. He could only manage a draw and USA lost 1.5-2.5.

Hosts Uzbekistan are on a rampaging mode. They defeated Hungary 4-0 on Sunday.