Grandmaster P Harikrishna led India to a 2.5-1.5 victory over Spain 'A' in the eighth round of the 36th Chess Olympiad at Gran Casino in Mallorca.
In other results involving Indians, World Rapid Champion Viswanathan Anand got another easy draw as black with top Spanish Grandmaster Alexei Shirov, Sasikrian signed peace with Francisco Vallejo Pons while Surya Shekhar Ganguly was forced to take only half point against Roberto Cifuentes Parada who salvaged a lost position.
Meanwhile, Ukraine consolidated its position at the top of the tables with a brilliant 3.5-0.5 victory over Bulgaria.
With this victory, the second seeds took their tally to 25 points out of a possible 32 and they have now emerged as the clear favourites for the title with a three-point lead over nearest rivals Russia who beat Armenia with a minimal margin of 2.5-1.5.
Indian men again jumped to joint third spot following their excellent triumph and now share it with Armenia on 21 points.
Half a point adrift of India are Spain 'A', United States and Poland on 20.5 points apiece while France, Georgia, Slovenia, Germany, China, Bulgaria and Switzerland are next in line with 20 points each in their kitty. Six more rounds still remain to be played in this Olympiad.
Harikrishna was very impressive against Miguel Illescas Cordoba, the third board player for Spain 'A'. Playing the Semi Slav defense the Indian was never in any serious troubles during the course of the game and when opportunity arose, he struck with vengeance.
| |||||||||||
Having also seen by now that both Sasikiran and Anand had drawn, the young Indian also felt under pressure to win the game.
Cordoba went overboard in trying to get an advantage. "I think he overestimated his position a great deal", said Harikrishna after the victory adding, my position was perhaps still slightly worse only but I was sure I have some compensation, I think he just played too rash in trying to win quickly".
Harikrishna spotted a very neat tactical stroke that netted him an extra piece. The rest was child's play and Cordoba called it a day after 58 moves.
"We were both in time pressure towards the end but I am happy I could find that nice shot despite having less time than my opponent," Harikrishna said.
In August earlier this year, Anand had beaten Alexei Shirov 5-3 in a one sided 8-games affair at Mainz Chess Classics and there too Anand had played the open Spanish as black, an opening he does not use very frequently these days.
Anand obviously wanted to find out whether Shirov had anything in particular against him after that match and as it turned out, the Latvian born Spaniard could not quite make any impression.
Things came easy for Anand even though some computer programmes regarded his position as slightly worse in the ensuing middle game.
Trading one minor piece after another the Indian ace made sure that Shirov would not be able to make any decisive progress despite his superior pawn structure and with the exchange of the last minor piece emminent, the players agreed to sign peace. The game lasted 24 moves.
Sasikiran appeared a shade better than Vallejo Pons who, before this round, was the top scorer in the Olympiad thus far according to performance rating.
With deft manoeuvres out of a Symmetrical English opening as white, Sasikiran was the first to exert pressure on Vallejo through central breaks that put the Spanish star on the defensive.
However, with his resourceful play, Vallejo was able to generate counter play on both flanks and even a pawn sacrifice from Sasikiran could not stop him from maintaining the balance. The position still had some complications left when Sasikiran pro posed the draw that Vallejo accepted.
"I don't know if I made any mistakes, he played quite actively as well even though my position was better for the major part," Sasikiran said after the game.
Ganguly was quite unlucky in not scoring his fourth victory. Playing the white side of a Phillidor, the Indian had Parada in all sorts of troubles but a mistake under mutual time pressure cost him dearly.
"It was completely winning, I just missed the thread of the position overlooking a simple response from him," said Ganguly who made inroads in to black's position in the middle game with fine pawn sacrifices that had left Parada tottering.
In the end the Indian had found himself in a three pawns plus Queen and Knight endgame but consistent threats against his own king forced Ganguly to sign peace in 55 moves.
The Ukrainians continued with their brilliant run after Vassily Ivanchuk settled for an effortless draw as black against Bulgarian Kiril Georgiev on the top board. On the second board Andrei Volokitin gave a technical lesson to Alexander Delchev, Ivan Cheparinov was outdone by Alexander Moiseenko and Sergey Karjakin crushed Julian Radulski on the last board.
In other important games, Poland drew with France while China beat Cuba to improve their position in standing list.
Important results round 8 Men:
Bulgaria (20) lost to Ukraine (25); Spain 'A' (20.5) lost to India (21) 1.5-2.5; Russia (22) beat Armenia (21) 2.5-1.5; France (20) drew with Poland (20.5) 2-2; United States (20.5) beat Azerbaijan (19.5) 2.5-1.5; Israel (19.5) drew with Moldova (19.5) 2-2; Netherlands (19) lost to Georgia (20) 1.5-2.5; China (20) beat Cuba (19) 2.5-1.5; Serbia Montenegro (19.5) drew with Czech Republic (19) 2-2; Slovakia (19) drew with Estonia (19) 2-2; Uzbekistan (18.5) lost to Kazakhstan (19.5) 1.5-2.5; Slovenia (20) beat Canada (17.5) 3-1; England (18) lost to Hungary (19) 1.5-2.5 Germany (20) beat Argentina (17) 3.5-0.5; Denmark (19) beat Greece (18) 2.5-1.5; Spain 'B' (18) drew with Belarus (18.5) 2-2; Brazil (18) drew with Romania (18) 2-2; Iceland (18) drew with Scotland (18) 2-2; Philippines (19.5) beat Indonesia (16.5) 3.5-0.5; Switzerland (20) beat Morocco (15.5) 4-0.
