Eves beat Kazakhstan, men's team splits point with Uzbekistan

Turin, May 31 (UNI) With Koneru Humpy back to her winnings ways, Indian eves outplayed Kazakhstan 2-1 to improve their ranking while their male counterparts, sans their best bet Viswanathan Anand, played out a 2-2 draw against Uzbekistan in the ninth round of the ongoing 37th Chess Olympiad here.

Playing with black, Grandmaster Humpy outwitted Kazakh WIM Dana Aketayeva in the game that, after a few early moves, turned into a not-so-common Robatsch variation.

Despite having black pieces, Humpy played her moves with confidence and concentrated on important squares. Dana tried hard to force some advantages but Humpy went on consolidating her position and after a long game Humpy clinched the issue.

On the second board, Dronavalli Harika also proved too strong for Sofya Zigangirova but the only loss came when in-form Swati Ghate failed to assert and lost to Gulmira Dauletova.

Indian women's team has 16.5 points after nine rounds and they are placed 14th.

In the men's section, Krishnan Sasikiran, playing with black, had a good game with former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov even though the Queens Gambit Declined Slav variation encounter ended in a quick draw after 21 moves.

In other matches against Uzbekistan, P Harikrishna was held by Aleksey Barsov, Surya Shekhar Ganguly split point with Timur Gareyev while Sandipan Chanda too shared the honours with Saidali Iuldachev.

The Indian men's team has 22.5 points and they occupy the 11th spot.

Round 9 Results: Men: Ukraine (23.5) lost to Armenia (26.5) 1.5-2.5 ; Russia (23.5) lost to France (24) 1.5-2.5; Georgia (21.5) lost to China (25.5) 0-4; USA (23.5) drew Czech Republic (23) 2-2; Germany (22.5) lost to Cuba (22) 1.5-2.5; India (22.5) drew Uzbekistan (22.5) 2-2; Slovenia (23) bt Slovakia (21) 3-1; Turkey (21.5) lost to Denmark (22) 1.5-2.5; Netherlands (21) lost to Croatia (22) 1.5-2.5; Moldova (22) bt Bulgaria (21) 2.5-1.5; Iran (21.5) drew Norway (21.5) 2-2.

Women: China (18.5) drew Russia (20.5) 1.5-1.5; USA (17.5) lost to Ukraine (21) 0.5-2.5; Hungary (16.5) lost to Georgia (19) 0.5-2.5; Bulgaria (18.5) bt Vietnam (16.5) 2.5-0.5; Armenia (18) bt Germany (16) 2.5-0.5; Lithuania (17) bt Slovenia (16.5) 2-1; Romania (17.5) bt Cuba (15.5) 2.5-0.5; Poland (15.5) lost to France (17.5) 0.5-2.5; Belarus(15) lost to Israel (17.5) 0-3; Kazakhstan (15.5) lost to India (16.5) 1-2.

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