India win bronze at World Team Chess

The Indian team spanked Brazil 3.5-0.5 in the final round to end the World Team Chess Championship in Turkey with a bronze medal.

Going into final round, needing an outright win to win a medal, the Krishanan Sasikiran-led team delivered the goods and only one draw was conceded out of the four boards possible on Wednesday.

Meanwhile Russia finished first after they completed a 3-1 victory over Israel in the final round. The Russians only needed a marginal victory to clinch the gold but Israelis blew it up in the games they played black.

United States won the deserving silver medal after they held Azerbaijan to an easy 2-2 draw following a peace result on all boards.

The Russians ended with a tally of 15 points in all while US and India tied for the second spot tally 13 points overall.

It was simply a tremendous result by the Indians without Viswanathan Anand, the mainstay of team India and also the highest rated player.

India captain Sasikiran who defeated the two best players in the event Levon Aronian of Armenia and Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan deserves all the praise for the stupendous result.

The charged up Indians under the training of Lev Psakhis went for the blood and were handsomely rewarded in the last round.

GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly yet again scored against Gilberto Milas and and at the fag end of the event P Harikrishna found his touch to beat upcoming Alexander Fier.

Sasuikiran drew his match playing with black pieces and on the fourth board Gopal won a tense battle against Andre Diamont as the Indians completed a much needed victory in the final round.

Anand finishes second in WBC

Viswanathan Anand had to be content with a second place finish in the World Blitz Chess Championship after managing 28 points.

Anand, who started off brilliantly by winning 12 out of the first 14 games, was three points clear of third positioned Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine.

The Championship saw Anand going in to a two point lead after the first day with Carlsen on his heels but the remaining two days belonged to the Norwegian who scored massively to romp home.

Carlsen is likely to become the top rated player in the new-year, when the next FIDE rating list will come out.

The major difference between Anand and Carlsen was the individual results. While Carlsen lost eight games in all, Anand lost just six but his draw percentage was much higher.

Overall, Anand finished with 20 wins and 16 draws besides his six losses.

In the individual matches Anand drew, lost and won one match each against both the ladies, Judit Polgar of Hungary and Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia.

With Hungarian Peter Leko, Armenian Levon Aronian and Israeli Boris Gelfand the Indian star played out two draws apiece and defeated the remaining participants with 1.5-0.5 or a 2-0 score.

Carlsen, who had been ailing with a throat infection just a few days back during the Tal Memorial, showed no signs of discomfiture in his 28 victories, including two against Anand in this 42-rounds, double round-robin tournament.

Anand next plays in the Corus chess tournament at Wijk Aan Zee in Holland in mid January and thereafter will defend his world title against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in a proposed match in April 2010.

Anand draws, drops to No. 2

Viswanathan Anand dropped to the second place after drawing his Rd 2 match with Magnus Carlsen in the Tal Memorial Chess Tournament.

Anand tried every trick in the book but could not get the better of the Norwegian's defence.

Russian Vladimir Kramnik now leads the chart with five points -- one more than Anand after he beat Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov in another sixth round match.

Anand plays Alexander Morozevich in the seventh round.

World champion Anand and Carlsen's battle for wits followed the Ragozin Defence in the Queen's Gambit Declined.

Carlsen played it safe even though Anand went on the offensive and they signed truce after 36 moves.

World chess: Indian eves finsih seventh

Indian eves defeated the USA 3-1 in the final round to finish seventh in the Women's World Team Chess Championship.

Favourites China One topped a three-way tie on 12 match points and took the title with a better tie-break score than Russia and Ukraine.

China One was held by Vietnam in the final round on all four boards despite the former enjoying better positions on at least two of the four boards.

Russia and Ukraine won their matches to catch up with China One at 12 match points. The tie was broken on the basis of game points. China One (21.5) finished ahead of Russia (21.0) and Ukraine (20.5).

The fourth place was taken by Georgian that beat erstwhile leaders Poland 3-1. The Armenian eves finished fifth along side Poland on 10 points while the Indians were placed next having nine match points in all.

For India, the last round victory over USA did not help its standing too much. Tania Sachdev displayed her true potential by defeating Anna Zatonskykh in 47 moves on the second board while Eesha Karavade downed Rusudan Goletiani in 42 moves on the third board.

Earlier, D Harika and Irina Krush drew in just 17 moves on the first board and Kruttika Nadig signed peace with Alisa Melekhina on the fourth to give India a 3-1 victory.

It could have been much better had the team not suffered three successive defeats and the marginal loss against Ukraine in the penultimate round did not help their cause either.

International Master Eesha Karavade was the pick among the Indians scoring an excellent six points out of a possible nine on the third board. D Harika was the only Indian who played all nine games and garnered 4.5 points in all on the first board.

Tania Sachdev ended her campaign on a high but her results in the first four games that she lost would mean that she will end up losing some rating points in the next FIDE rating list.

The other two Indians in the fray -- Mary Ann Gomes and Kruttika Nadig -- will also lose rating points. Mary Ann scored three points out of her seven games while Kruttika ended up with 1.5 points out of her four games.

Nikil keeps Indian hopes alive

India’s Shayam Nikil beat Turkmenistan's Atabayev Yusup to keep the Indian hopes of a gold medal alive at the Asian Youth Chess Championship.

In the Under-18 Open section, Shayam Nikil displayed sheer class to beat Yusup in a match that lasted 116 moves in the sixth round.

Meanwhile, top seed Grandmaster Salem A R Saleh of UAE settled for a draw after 93 moves against Iranian Porramezanali Amirreza.

Shyam and Salem are now leading the table in this section with five points closely followed by Debashish Das with a drift of half point.

In the girls section, Bhakti Kulkarni and Nakhbayeva Guliskhan of Kazakhstan are leading the table with five points. In the girls Under-8 Category, four Indian girls; Arpita Mukherjee, Khushi Dharewa, Tarini Goyal and Nithya Pallempati are occupying the pole position with 4.5 points.

In the Under-16 Open section, Nguyen Van Hai of Vietnam and Atabayev Maksat are giving company to Priyadharshan at the top with five and half points while Vietnamese Girls Vo Thi Kim Phung and Hoang Thi Nhu are leading in the girls section.

In the Under-14 Open, G V Sai Krishna overcame his teammate and fancied rival Sahaj Grover in the seventh round and now shares the top spot with five and half points along with Idani Pouya of Iran. J Saranya and Khademalsharieh Sarasadat of Iran are leading in the girls section.

Diptayan Ghosh along with team mate Sayantan Das and Artmenko Oleg of Uzbekistan are in the lead in Under-12 Open section, while in the girls section Srija Seshadri and G K Monnisha are occupying the top spot.

Ivana Maria Furtado (Girls' Under-10) and Mitrabha Guha (Open Under-8) are the other Indian leaders.