Chess Olympiad: Arjun finds form as India beats Spain; Savitha stars for women

India’s open and women’s teams scored identical 3-1 victories in the fourth round of the Chess Olympiad at Samarkand on Saturday. The men didn’t take long to dismiss the challenge from Spain, but the women had to wait a bit before overcoming Mongolia.

Both Indian teams have thus won all their four matches so far. The Indian contingent will particularly be pleased with Arjun Erigaisi’s fine win against Maksim Chigaev on the second board. It hadn’t been a great start for him in Uzbekistan, having lost his first game and then drawn the second.

World champion D. Gukesh, playing on the fourth board, also won, against Alexei Shirov, who was the finalist when Viswanathan Anand brought the World championship to India for the first time back in 2000. There were draws for R. Praggnanandhaa and Nihal Sarin.