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A shock defeat for D Harika on the top board did not deter the other young Indian women as R Vaishali, Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agarwal scored big victories to ensure a 3-1 win over Switzerland that kept them in joint lead on six match points in the 45th Chess Olympiad on Friday.
Harika lost to Alexandra Kosteniuk who gave up her Russian citizenship and joined the Swiss team some time back. A former world women’s champion Kosteniuk was in her elements and scored the full point after Harika misplayed the middle game that appeared even from the bird’s eye view.
Vaishali gave no chances to other migrant Ghazal Hakimifard who left her Iranian citizenship. It was a bit of a technical game from the white pieces as Ghazal made some unforced errors and did not quite recover.
Divya Deshmukh continued with her winning ways and clearly the Indian seemed to be having the time of her life on the chessboard.
After recently winning the World junior girls’ championship, Divya scored a regulation win against Sofiia Hryzlova while on the fourth board Vantika Agrawal proved much stronger than Mariia Manko.
In the open section too the Indian men got an 3.5-0.5 victory against Hungary ‘B’ team. The hero of the day was Arjun Erigaise who played a brilliant attacking game against Peter Prohazska and ended with a checkmate after a queen sacrifice.
Vidit Gujrathi played out a quick draw as black against Papp Gabor, Gukesh defeated Adam Kozak, while Praggnanandhaa beat Tamas Banusz.
Indian Results round 3 women: Alexandra Kosteniuk beat D Harika; R Vaishali beat Ghazal Hakimifard; Sofiia Hryzlova lost to Divya Deshmukh; Vantika Agrawal beat Mariia Manko.
Men: D Gukesh beat Adam Kozak; R Praggnanandhaa beat Tamas Banusz; Arjun Erigaise beat Peter Prohazska; Papp Gabor drew with Vidit Gujrathi.
(With inputs from Agencies)